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Open any allocator’s screening workflow and the first few filters look surprisingly similar. Before they read a pitch deck or take a call, they check a handful of performance fields to decide whether a fund deserves the time at all.
For fund managers, knowing which fields get checked first is useful. It tells you which numbers will be read before your story is, and which ones need to hold up under a peer comparison.
In this article, we’ll walk through the five performance data fields allocators search for first, and why each one earns its spot at the top of the list.
5 Performance Data Fields Allocators Search For First
1. Vintage Year
Vintage year is the field that makes every other number readable. A 2019 fund and a 2023 fund entered different markets, deployed at different prices, and sit at different points in their life cycles. Allocators filter by vintage first because a performance figure without a vintage has nothing to be compared against.
It also sets expectations. A young fund with thin distributions is behaving normally, while an older fund with the same profile raises questions. Vintage tells the allocator which of those two situations they are looking at.
2. DPI
DPI shows how much cash has actually come back to investors for every dollar called. It is the field allocators trust most, because it cannot be moved by a valuation mark.
That is why it gets checked early on anything past its first few years. A manager can show a strong multiple on paper, but DPI shows how much of that value has been converted into real distributions. Allocators read it against same-vintage peers, since the number only means something relative to fund age.
3. Net IRR
Net IRR is the headline return, measured after fees, expenses, and carried interest. It is the closest thing to what an investor actually earned, and it is the only one of these five fields that accounts for the timing of every call and distribution.
Allocators search for it early, but rarely read it alone. A 14% Net IRR means one thing against a 10% peer median and something very different against an 18% one. The question they are really asking is where the fund sits among comparable funds, which is why the benchmark matters as much as the figure itself.
A reported number is only half of the screen. The other half is the peer group behind it, matched on vintage, strategy, geography, and fund size. Dakota Private Markets holds Net IRR, TVPI, DPI, and RVPI on 18,000+ funds so you can see exactly where a fund lands. Request Access.
4. TVPI
TVPI adds realized and unrealized value together and divides by paid-in capital. It is the cleanest single read on total value creation, and it is insensitive to the timing effects that can swing IRR. Understanding what TVPI does and does not tell you is a core part of how allocators screen.
They check it right after DPI and IRR because it completes the picture. A strong TVPI backed by solid DPI reads as real value. A strong TVPI built mostly on unrealized marks reads as a question to ask the manager.
5. RVPI
RVPI is the value still held in the portfolio, per dollar called. It is the final field in the first pass because it shows how much of the story remains unwritten.
Since TVPI equals DPI plus RVPI, allocators use RVPI to see how much of a fund’s reported value still depends on future exits clearing the current marks. A high RVPI late in a fund’s life is exposure, not upside, and it tells the allocator exactly where to focus diligence. For a full breakdown of how all of these metrics fit together, see our guide to private fund performance metrics.
The Dakota View
Dakota Private Markets tracks 18,000+ private funds and 159,000+ performance records across seven asset classes. Every record carries Net IRR, TVPI, DPI, and RVPI, filterable by vintage year, asset class, sub-strategy, geography, and fund size, and reviewed by Dakota’s research team before publication rather than auto-populated from filings.
For allocators, that means all five fields can be pulled and benchmarked in one place. For fund managers, it means the peer set an allocator builds is the same one your numbers will be measured against.
Know Which Numbers Get Read First
These five fields are the first filter, and they are applied before anyone reads your story. Dakota Private Markets lets you see your fund’s numbers the way an allocator will, against the vintage-matched peer group that gives them context, with results exporting to Excel or CSV.
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