AdzCentral

AdzCentral was a Singapore-based advertising technology firm that provided a scientific media buying platform to optimize digital ad spending for its clients. The company was founded in 2009 by Reza Behnam, who served as its CEO. Behnam's background includes extensive experience in the technology and media sectors, having served as the managing director of Yahoo Southeast Asia and as a venture partner at IDG Ventures. This experience in data sciences and managing large international partnerships at Yahoo informed AdzCentral's data-centric approach to advertising.

The firm's core business was to simplify the complex landscape of digital advertising for direct marketers, brand marketers, and advertising agencies. AdzCentral operated on a B2B model, offering a suite of solutions that combined a self-service portal, AdzHub, with robust professional services. Revenue was generated by providing clients with tools and expertise for real-time advertising, data-rich targeting, campaign measurement, and optimization. The platform integrated with demand-side platforms (DSPs) and trading desk technology to facilitate real-time bidding on ad inventory across various channels, including mobile, video, search, and social media. This allowed clients to achieve better returns on investment through more efficient and targeted ad placements.

A key milestone for AdzCentral was securing a Series A funding round of S$4 million (US$3.2 million) in March 2013, led by Cento Ventures (formerly Digital Media Partners) and Electric Sheep Capital. This followed an earlier seed round from investors including Neoteny Labs and Toivo Annus, a founding engineer of Skype. By 2013, the company had already served over 100 clients, including major brands like SingTel, Unilever, American Express, and MasterCard. In January 2015, AdzCentral merged with two other regional ad-tech firms, Better and Asia Digital Ventures, to form a new entity named CtrlShift. This merger created one of the largest independent programmatic advertising companies in Asia at the time, with Behnam taking on the role of executive chairman for the new firm.

Keywords: AdzCentral, Reza Behnam, scientific media buying, programmatic advertising, demand-side platform, ad tech, real-time bidding, campaign optimization, audience targeting, digital media buying, CtrlShift, Singapore startup, venture capital, ad exchange, media planning, data analytics, ad optimization, audience profiling, Cento Ventures, digital advertising