Atlas
Back to PPM Roll-Ups
Founder / Operator·PPM Roll-Ups

Rob Feuer

Founder & Managing Partner at Zenyth Partners

New York, NY

RF
Why they matter

Rare investor-operator hybrid — built and chairs a real DSO (Smilist) while running a $1.5B healthcare PE platform, giving him both deal and rollup-execution perspective.

Background

Rob Feuer is Founder and Managing Partner of Zenyth Partners, a healthcare-focused private equity firm he built to partner with founders, clinicians, and operators creating differentiated healthcare organizations. He spent time as a Partner at Warburg Pincus focused on buyout and growth equity, and in 2014 co-founded The Smilist, a dental support organization he chairs, giving him operator experience alongside his investor track record. He holds an MBA in Finance and Healthcare Management from Wharton and a master's from Corvinus University of Budapest.

Notable deals

  • 2014
    Co-founded The Smilist, a NY-Metro dental support organization now spanning 60+ locations, which he continues to chair
  • 2021
    Led The Smilist's affiliation with Encore Dental, expanding the platform to 34 NY-metro locations with 500+ employees
  • 2025
    Closed Zenyth Partners Fund II at $375M in commitments (oversubscribed), pushing firm AUM to ~$1.5B

Call-prep brief

Rob Feuer — Founder & Managing Partner, Zenyth Partners

Background

  • 20+ years in healthcare/consumer services PE; former Partner at Warburg Pincus (buyout & growth equity)
  • Co-founded The Smilist (dental DSO) in 2014 with Phil Toh; still chairs it — direct rollup-building experience, not just capital allocation
  • Wharton MBA (Finance & Healthcare Management)

Current focus

  • Just closed Zenyth Fund II at $375M (oversubscribed, July 2025), bringing AUM to ~$1.5B
  • Actively deploying into growth-stage healthcare services platforms, targeting sub-$50M initial checks in the Northeast U.S.
  • Firm positions itself as "business builders," not passive investors — heavy operating-team bench (COO, revenue cycle, talent acquisition leads)

What he cares about

  • Operational excellence and technology systems as the lever for scaling healthcare platforms
  • Founder/clinician-friendly partnership model — sourcing deals through relationships, not auctions
  • Category leadership and defensible consumer brand in fragmented specialties (dental is the proof point)

Recent moves

  • Fund II close signals fresh capital and appetite for new platform investments right now
  • GP committed ~10% of fund capital — skin in the game is a talking point

Sensitivities

  • Smilist is his personal legacy asset; frame questions about DSO consolidation risk carefully
  • Fund is newly raised — he may be selective/early in deployment, not desperate for deal flow

Questions to ask

  1. With Fund II fresh, what specialties beyond dental is Zenyth prioritizing for the next 12-18 months?
  2. What operational playbook from Smilist's scale-up is he replicating across new platforms?
  3. How does he evaluate physician-practice rollup targets versus the DSO model he knows firsthand?

Outreach draft

Subject
Physician practice rollup — quick question for you
Hi Rob, I came across your work building The Smilist and now Zenyth's healthcare platform strategy following your Fund II close — the operator-plus-investor angle is unusual and exactly the perspective we're looking for. We're doing research on physician practice rollups and would value 20 minutes of your time to hear how you think about platform selection, operational scaling, and the biggest execution risks in this space. Happy to work around your schedule, remote or in NYC. Would you be open to a short call in the next couple of weeks? Best, [Placeholder Name]

Linked companies

Sources