Stan Dennis
Managing Director and Operating Partner
Get their honest, personalized take on your startup.
Sign in to pitch Stan →At a glance
- Full Name
- Stan (Stanley) Dennis
- Title
- Managing Director and Operating Partner
- Firm
- Gauge Capital
- Firm Type
- Middle-market private equity (note: the stub-data label "Angel Investors / Seed Round" appears inaccurate — Gauge is a control-buyout/growth PE firm, not an angel/seed investor)
- Investment Stage
- Buyout and growth equity in the middle market (Gauge typically targets companies with ~$5M–$50M of EBITDA), not seed
- Sector Focus
- Healthcare services (Dennis's specialty); Gauge firm-wide also invests in tech-enabled business services, government & industrial services, and food & consumer
- Geographic Focus
- North America (primarily U.S.)
- Location
- Southlake / Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas
Background
Stan Dennis is a Managing Director and Operating Partner at Gauge Capital, a Southlake, Texas–based middle-market private equity firm, which he joined in April 2019 to help lead the firm's healthcare investments. He brings more than 30 years of executive leadership experience across some of the nation's largest health systems, health plans, and physician groups, and his role at Gauge is operationally focused — guiding portfolio company performance and governance rather than sourcing early-stage venture deals.
Before Gauge, Dennis was an Operating Partner at Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (WCAS), the prominent healthcare- and tech-focused PE firm, where he had worked since 2015. Prior to WCAS, he served as an Executive Vice President at Optum (UnitedHealth Group), where he was responsible for over $10 billion in Physician Services, Post-Acute Care, and Specialty Network businesses. He joined Optum after roughly 16 years in executive leadership roles at Texas Health Resources (THR) and Allina Health System.
Dennis holds a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Business Administration and Management from Bowling Green State University. His career has centered on operating and scaling large provider organizations, which is the lens he brings to Gauge's healthcare-services portfolio.
Investment Thesis & Focus
- Focuses on healthcare services within Gauge's broader middle-market buyout strategy — provider platforms, physician practice management, specialty networks, and related services.
- As an operating partner, his value-add is operational scaling, executive leadership, and board-level governance of platform companies, not writing seed checks.
- Gauge as a firm pursues control buyouts and growth equity in companies in the lower-to-middle market (roughly $5M–$50M EBITDA range), across healthcare services, tech-enabled business services, government & industrial services, and food & consumer.
- His track record (Optum, WCAS, large health systems) signals a thesis built around consolidating and professionalizing fragmented healthcare-provider categories.
Notable Investments
- Comprehensive EyeCare Partners — ophthalmology/optometry practice platform; Dennis serves as Executive Chairman.
- Urology America — urology practice-management platform; Dennis serves as a Director.
- US Radiology Specialists — radiology services platform; board member.
- Lucent Health — health-plan / self-funded benefits administration company; board member.
- Revelohealth (Revelo Health) — healthcare services company; board member.
- Emsar — medical-equipment service and management company; board member.
Unlock the full research
Get how to approach them, recent activity, sources, contact links — plus pitch their AI twin for a candid read on your raise.
One-time. Stays unlocked for you.