The Zayo Playbook: Building a Roll-Up That Creates Real Value

Dan Caruso, Managing Director, Caruso Ventures; Founding CEO of Zayo Group

Dan Caruso built Zayo from a startup into a $14B+ bandwidth infrastructure platform through 45 acquisitions. In Part 1 of this conversation, he breaks down the full buyer-led playbook: how the Zayo thesis was formed, how deals were sourced proprietary, why integration speed was a competitive weapon, and why EBITDA alone will mislead you on whether you're actually creating value.

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What You'll Learn

How to identify and build a contrarian acquisition thesis with investor alignment
Why proprietary deal flow is a brand and relationship problem, not a sourcing problem
How Zayo executed an unsolicited, fully funded offer on a larger public company — and won
Why tracking individual acquisitions kills synergies in a roll-up
When earnouts hurt more than they help — and what to use instead
How clean, all-cash offers win on certainty, not price

Dan Caruso

Dan Caruso is Managing Director of Caruso Ventures and the Founding CEO of Zayo Group, which he built from a startup in 2007 into one of North America's leading bandwidth infrastructure companies before its sale. He is the author of Bandwidth, an operator's account of the telecom industry's boom, bust, and reinvention through M&A.