Data sourced from Dakota Private Markets, the private fund performance platform powered by Dakota. Learn More | Request Access
A fund's quartile rank often differs between a manager's deck and an allocator's own analysis, even when both use the same performance figures. The difference usually comes from the peer set. Each side has ranked the fund against a different group of funds, and a quartile on its own does not show which group was used.
A Quartile Is a Ranking Within a Peer Group
A quartile rank shows where a fund falls within a set of comparable funds. That set is defined by several choices: vintage year, strategy and sub-strategy, geography, fund size, and the metric used to rank. Changing any one of these can move the same fund into a different quartile.
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Peer Set Choice
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What It Controls
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How It Can Affect Your Rank
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Vintage Year
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Which market cycle the fund is measured against
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Adjacent vintages can fall on opposite sides of a valuation or exit cycle
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Strategy Definition
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Broad (buyout) or narrow (lower mid-market, sector-focused)
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A narrower set changes which funds count as peers
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Geography
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North America, Europe, or global
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Regional return profiles differ, so the cut can raise or lower a fund's rank
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Size Band
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Which fund sizes are treated as comparable
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Large funds and emerging managers often rank differently against each other
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Ranking Metric
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Net IRR, TVPI, or DPI
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A fund can rank differently on each, especially in younger vintages where DPI is limited
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Dakota Peer Groups is organized around these inputs, so any quartile you quote should come with the definition behind it.
Three Things to Check in the Peer Set
Before you cite a quartile in a pitch, or accept one from an allocator, check the peer set on three points.
- Number of funds. In a small peer set, one or two funds can shift the quartile breakpoints. A rank based on a thin sample is less reliable.
- Fund names. Review which funds are included. If your direct competitors are missing, or the set includes funds that differ from yours in strategy or size, the rank is less meaningful.
- How the set was defined. Confirm the criteria were set before your fund's results were compared, and that they are documented so someone else can reproduce the ranking.
Bottom line: A quartile rank is only as informative as the peer set behind it, so check the peer funds before you rely on the rank.
See Fund-Level Performance in Dakota Private Markets
Dakota Private Markets shows fund-level net IRR, TVPI, DPI and quartile rank by vintage, so you can see exactly where your funds and your peers’ funds stand.
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