Sean Dempsey

Sean M. Dempsey is a co-founder and Partner at Sheridan Capital Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm focused on lower middle market healthcare companies. The firm makes control investments in North American founder-owned businesses with roughly $3–20M of EBITDA in "recession-resistant, non-discretionary" healthcare markets. As of late 2025, Sheridan reported having raised over $1B across its funds, with 21 platform investments and more than 180 add-on acquisitions; its third fund, Sheridan Capital Partners Fund III, closed in July 2023 at its hard cap of $575 million (above a $450M target).

Before co-founding Sheridan, Dempsey was at Kinderhook Industries, a lower middle market private equity firm, where he sourced, led, executed, and managed investments across the healthcare, business services, and consumer sectors. Earlier, he was a Senior Analyst at Glenview Capital Management, a long/short hedge fund, where he focused on publicly traded companies in the business services sector. He began his career in the Healthcare Group at Credit Suisse First Boston.

Dempsey earned an AB with honors in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University and an MBA with honors in Healthcare Management and Finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of several Partners at the firm, alongside co-founder Jonathan B. Lewis and partners including Michael M. Bernard, Jeffrey C. Foote, Christopher S. McCrory, and others.

• Healthcare-only, lower middle market control investor. Sheridan makes control investments and partial recapitalizations/buyouts of founder-owned healthcare businesses — not minority seed or angel checks.
• Target economics: companies with $5–25M EBITDA in services/products, and $0–10M EBITDA in software/technology; equity checks of roughly $15–150M.
• Subsector discipline: healthcare outsourced services, providers (behavioral health, dental, ENT, women's health, veterinary, post-acute), medical products, and healthcare IT/software serving providers, payors, pharma, and patients.
• Strategy: "Disciplined and focused approach" partnering with founders and management teams in select healthcare subsectors; emphasizes operational support, organic growth (the firm cites 200%+ organic growth vs. industry average), and add-on M&A.
• What makes them say yes: founder-owned, entrepreneurially-led companies with consistent growth, profitability, fragmented-market consolidation potential, and limited regulatory risk, headquartered in the U.S. or Canada.