Data sourced from Dakota Private Markets, the private fund performance platform powered by Dakota. Learn More | Request Access
Two private fund databases can hold the same fund and show two different IRRs, two different vintages, and two different peer groups. Neither one has to be wrong. The gap comes from decisions made long before you ran the search: how a record got in, who checked it, and how the data is allowed to be compared.
Those decisions rarely appear on a pricing page, but they decide whether a database can support an investment committee memo or only a first look.
In this article, we'll walk through the five choices that make one private fund database different from another, and what each one means for the work you do with it.
Every database starts with a sourcing decision. Some rely mostly on managers submitting their own figures. Some lean on public filings and pension disclosures. Some build records through independent research.
Each route carries its own bias. Submissions skew toward the funds managers want seen. Public disclosures are independent but can arrive late or leave gaps. A database drawing on one source inherits that source's blind spot, while one that reconciles several can catch what any single source misses.
Dakota Private Markets gathers fund performance from GP reporting, LP disclosures, and public filings, so no single source decides what is in the database.
Some products report anonymized, pooled cohorts: a median and a set of quartile breakpoints for a vintage and strategy. That answers "where does this fund sit against its vintage?" It cannot answer "where does this fund sit against the ten funds I actually consider its competitors?"
Named, fund-level data can answer both, because you can see the funds behind the number. The choice between the two is a choice about how much of your own judgment the data lets you apply.
Automated collection is fast and cheap. It is also how a misread filing or a press-release figure ends up in a diligence file.
Ask whether a person reviews each record before it is published, and whether that review happens once or on an ongoing basis. Every record in Dakota Private Markets is reviewed by Dakota's research team before publication, not auto-populated and not taken at face value from a manager's marketing materials.
See the funds behind the benchmark. Dakota Private Markets holds 159,000+ performance records across 18,000+ named funds, every one reviewed by Dakota's research team before publication. Request Access.
Closed-end private equity, private credit, and real estate funds are judged on IRR and multiples. Hedge funds and evergreen and interval vehicles never close, so they are better read through annualized returns over set time horizons.
A database designed around closed-end funds can force open-end vehicles into the wrong template or leave them out entirely. That leaves gaps in some of the fastest-growing parts of the market. Dakota Private Markets covers seven asset classes and includes returns for hedge funds, evergreen funds, and semi-liquid alternatives.
A pre-built benchmark is a fixed answer to a question someone else chose. "Private equity, 2019 vintage" puts a $200M lower-middle-market buyout fund and a $10B megafund in the same group.
A database that lets you filter by vintage, strategy, geography, and fund size turns the benchmark into something you construct. Custom benchmarking in Dakota Private Markets lets you build the peer group yourself and compare named funds directly, so the comparison matches the fund in front of you.
None of this means one build is right for every job. A pooled benchmark can be a reasonable directional check. The trouble starts when a database built for one purpose gets used for another: a pooled cohort for a manager shortlist, a closed-end template for an evergreen fund, or a single-source record for a diligence memo.
Before you rely on a database, ask how records get in, whether funds are named, who verifies them, how each fund structure is treated, and whether you can build your own peer group. The answers tell you what the numbers can and cannot support.
Dakota Private Markets, powered by Dakota, brings together 18,000+ named funds and 159,000+ performance records across seven asset classes, with Net IRR, TVPI, DPI, and RVPI on every record. Plans start at $9,500 per year for up to five users.
Request access today to build a peer group from named, research-verified funds and see how it compares with the database you use now.