Buffalo-based company has seen 65 percent average annual growth over past three years
Centivo remains true to its core principal – tech-enabled healthcare plans that employers can offer to their workers at much lower costs.
The Buffalo-based company, which was founded in 2018 and has raised more than $225 million, retains a strong local presence with 130 employees in its downtown Buffalo headquarters.
Its annual growth rate over the past three years has been a healthy 65%, as it continues to build high-value relationships with customers that range from Fortune 50s to small businesses.
But Ashok Subramanian, the company’s founder and CEO, is not here to invest in the corn syrup messaging of startup bliss that so many founders often portray.
Yes, things are going well. Yes, Centivo will continue to grow toward a long-term positive outcome. And yes, the firm has adopted AI as an efficiency tool in its operation.
But Centivo is still a tech-enabled service in a world where AI products are an utter obsession, from the media to venture capital to the liquidity markets.
That means the company, which has fundamentals that would have likely led to attractive funding events in other periods, is instead preparing for a period of prolonged execution.
“We’re not focused anymore on chasing publicity from raising money or other things that startups often do,” Subramanian said. “What you will see is even more of a focus on our product performance, operational excellence, and being really great with our customers. Our 95% client retention rate and the less than $250 that a person spends on healthcare each year on our plan – that’s what we want to talk about”.
(Subramanian’s out-of-pocket healthcare costs on a Centivo plan are a mere $40 so far this year.)
Subramanian’s words, of course, carry heavy weight in his hometown. Though he now lives in New York City, Subramanian grew up in Buffalo and founded his first company here, health benefits startup Liazon, which grew quickly and then sold to Towers Watson for $215 million in 2013.
When Subramanian started a new company, Centivo, to solve the plague of escalating healthcare costs, he once again decided to base it in his hometown. It’s worth noting that he was also an early investor in ACV Auctions, Buffalo’s first software unicorn, which went public in 2021 in a $3.8 billion IPO; and in Verivend, founded by former Liazon execs, which was sold in 2025 at undisclosed terms.
“Our outlook is super positive,” he said. “We’re proud of how far we’ve come and we’re excited for the challenges ahead.”
