Centana

A Growth Equity Firm Punching Above Its Weight

Brief &
Approach

Centana is a relatively new growth equity firm investing in the “workhorses, not unicorns” of finance and fintech.  Launched only a few years ago, the partners left FTV to create their own firm – and Centana needed to outmarket itself in order to better compete for portfolio investments in a relatively crowded VC/PE environment.

Vested created a new messaging architecture for the firm that conveyed its “zig where others zag” message, coining the “workhorses, not unicorns” message for its team which has proven to be extremely sticky. The program focused on earned media, speaking engagements, and marketing.

In addition, Vested rebranded Centana, aligning its visual image with its innovative investing model and creating a new website to properly showcase its growing portfolio.

Broadcast
Coverage

Vested raised Centana’s profile by securing both print and broadcast interviews with leading business publications, such as Investor’s Business Daily.

 

Eric Byunn, Partner at Centana Growth Partners, discusses the top fintech trends to watch in 2019.

Digital & Print
Coverage

In addition to broadcast coverage, Centana was featured in top print publications, such as Forbes, Institutional Investor, and the Wall Street Journal.

Mockups on a MacBook and mobile device, showing media coverage for Centana.

Eric Byunn and Ben Cukier, Partners at Centana Growth, were both featured on the Finance Fintech 40 list for 2019.

Logo

As part of Vested’s push to promote Centana’s external presence, we gave them a complete rebrand, including a new logo design, color palette, fonts and collateral.

Logo for Centana in black text, with a green graphic depicting trees.
Logo for Centana in black text, with a green graphic depicting trees.

LEFT: Centana’s updated logomark, which draws inspiration from their love of nature and dedication to “growing” companies, abstracting trees into a sleek and distinct graphic.

RIGHT: Centana’s full-color horizontal logo.

Type

We chose a combination of sans-serif fonts for Centana’s brand: Josefin Sans Bold for titles and Muli regular for all body copy. The rounded shapes and legibility of Muli give Centana-branded content an innovative and tech-forward feel, while the sharp angles and heavy weight of Josefin Sans provide a strong and distinct typographic style to headings.

Display, of the font Josefin, of a capital A and a lowercase a.
Alphabet letters, numbers and symbols for the Josefin font in Sans Bold.
Display, of the font Muli, of a capital Z and a lowercase z.
Alphabet letters, numbers and symbols for the Muli font in Bold and Regular.

Colors

Centana’s color palette consists of five primary colors: Centana Green, Navy, Teal, Grey and Black.  The combination of earth tones give the brand an organic and natural feel reminiscent of growth.

Circle of color named “Centana Green” from the Ventana color palette and branding case study.
Circle of color named “Centana Navy” from the Ventana color palette and branding case study.
Circle of color named “Centana Teal” from the Ventana color palette and branding case study.
Circle of color named “Centana Grey” from the Ventana color palette and branding case study.
Circle of a black color named “Centana Black” from the Ventana color palette and branding case study.

Centana Green

Centana Navy

Centana Teal

Centana Grey

Centana Black

Website & Collateral

Vested redesigned Centana’s website and applied the updated brand to existing collateral and assets.

A website mockup of the Centana rebranding, shown on a MacBook and mobile device.
A mockup of the Centana rebranding, showing business cards.

Results

An elevated profile for a very small firm, with it just being named to the Institutional Investor Finance 40 – a ranking of the top banks/VCs/PEs in the space. Because our topics tend to be quite “crunchy” as Centana invests in non-hyped finance (data monetization, structured products, B2B payments, etc.), we’ve had success targeting both high-profile trade press and major financial press, and landed speaking engagements for the partners across the U.S.