Buffalo Business First chose 10 companies this year for our inaugural Inno Fire awards, representing the breadth and diversity of Buffalo’s startup scene. These are their stories.
Centivo
CEO: Ashok Subramanian
Founded: 2017
Headquarters: 77 Goodell St., 5th floor, Buffalo, NY
What the company does: A data-based, self-funded health-care plan
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Centivo isn’t just a fast-growing, venture-funded startup that chose Buffalo for its corporate headquarters in 2022.
It’s also built on the belief that technology can improve one of the most intractable problems of our time: the quality and cost of health care.
The company was founded in 2017 by Ashok Subramanian, who co-founded and later sold Liazon Corp., one of the first major startup success stories in Buffalo.
Subramanian baked the company in New York City for several years before deciding in 2021 that Western New York would be official headquarters. Centivo has raised more than $100 million in venture capital and is now growing its team here – from technology and operations workers to customer success agents – as it expands this year into the top 20 American markets.
Subramanian proved with Liazon that he can build a scalable digital health company. That’s the plan for Centivo too, but the idea is bigger than that. It’s about introducing a new ethos in the health insurance space, and helping companies, doctors and individuals in the process.
“Covid opened up people’s eyes to the fractures in our current health-care system,” Subramanian has said. “We don’t do the basics very well. We don’t give people primary care. We don’t have relationships with providers that we can trust.”
Employers are stepping back and looking at a workforce that is often weighing the cost of health care versus the cost of housing and food.
“As a result, a number of employers are saying we need to partner with new organizations who are rethinking how health care is delivered,” he said.
