What Is a Private Markets Database?
Private markets investing is expanding faster than the infrastructure built to support it. Tracking fund performance, benchmarking strategies against true peer groups, following new launches, evaluating GPs, and understanding where institutional capital is flowing — these tasks happen across dozens of disconnected sources, in formats that don't talk to each other, updated at different frequencies, and locked behind different paywalls.
A private markets database consolidates that intelligence into one platform. The best ones don't just aggregate data — they structure it for decision-making. Performance figures with context. Benchmarks built to your actual peer group. Fund launches tracked the day they happen. GP contacts verified. Consultant reviews surfaced. Document libraries you can actually search.
Dakota Private Markets is the intelligence platform built for investment teams that evaluate private funds for a living — fund of funds, pension funds, endowments, family offices, consultants, GPs, and RIAs who need to move faster and research deeper than public sources allow.
Fund Performance & Benchmarking
Private fund performance has traditionally been locked behind expensive paywalls, making it too costly for many of the due diligence analysts and investment teams who need it most. There is no S&P 500 equivalent for private equity. No Barclays Aggregate for private credit. No Russell 2000 for venture capital. That lack of standardization creates uncertainty — making it harder to justify allocation decisions, evaluate manager selection, or determine whether a 15% net IRR represents alpha generation or simply beta capture during a favorable vintage year.
Dakota Performance & Benchmarks changes that. Performance intelligence across 14,000+ strategies — IRRs, TVPI, DPI, RVPI, vintage-level returns, quartile placements, and strategy comparisons — updated weekly and structured for real investment workflows.
Performance & Benchmarks
Build custom peer groups by strategy, vintage year, geography, fund size, or any combination you choose. No generic index. No stitching spreadsheets. Accurate quartile placements and custom peer groups give investment teams the context they need to evaluate managers with confidence.
What Good Benchmarking Actually Requires
A net IRR only becomes meaningful when contextualized against peer funds pursuing comparable strategies within the same vintage year. Investment committees, CIOs, and institutional consultants rely on peer benchmarks to distinguish genuine alpha generation from market beta. Without that frame of reference, performance metrics lose interpretive value entirely.
| Metric | What It Measures | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| IRR | Internal rate of return — annualized time-weighted performance | Most commonly used GP reporting metric; meaningful only in peer context |
| TVPI | Total value to paid-in capital — realized + unrealized value over invested capital | Shows full value creation including unrealized; less sensitive to timing than IRR |
| DPI | Distributions to paid-in capital — cash actually returned to investors | The only metric that measures liquidity actually delivered to LPs |
| RVPI | Residual value to paid-in capital — remaining unrealized value | Shows how much of the fund's value is still on paper versus in hand |
| Vintage Year | Year capital was first deployed | The essential peer group anchor — comparing a 2019 fund to a 2015 fund is meaningless |
Evergreen Funds — What They Are and How to Benchmark Them
The traditional closed-end private markets fund — 10-year lifecycle, capital calls, rigid exit timelines — is giving way to something new. Evergreen funds are open-ended by design. Investors can subscribe on a monthly or quarterly basis. No waiting on capital calls. No cash drag. For managers, steady inflows. For allocators, periodic liquidity without abandoning private markets exposure entirely.
Performance data on evergreen funds has historically been scattered, inconsistently reported, and difficult to aggregate. Many market participants assume evergreen performance is opaque. It is not. Dakota identified performance data for more than 450 evergreen funds by systematically reviewing regulatory filings — and in the process uncovered nearly 100 additional evergreen vehicles that were not widely tracked or categorized as evergreen strategies.
Evergreen Fund Performance Benchmarking
One of the most comprehensive evergreen benchmarking datasets available. All performance data sourced from publicly available filings and organized into a consistent, benchmark-ready format. Covering private equity, private credit, real estate, and hybrid vehicles.
Why Evergreen Funds Are Gaining Traction
- Subscription model — investors allocate at set intervals, no waiting on capital calls or cash drag
- Smoother returns — continuous reinvestment minimizes the J-curve drag common in closed-end funds
- Quarterly or annual liquidity windows — unlike 7–10-year lockups in traditional private equity
- Vintage diversification built in — continuous deployment naturally diversifies across market cycles
- Monthly or quarterly NAV reporting — far more transparent than traditional closed-end structures
- Regulatory support — the SEC is broadening private markets access for retail and wealth channel investors
Who Is Using Evergreen Funds in 2026
| Allocator Type | Appetite | Key Driver |
|---|---|---|
| Wealth Manager RIAs | High | Retail access via interval fund structures on iCapital, CAIS |
| Family Offices | Growing | Simpler deployment, no vintage concentration risk |
| Insurance Companies | High for credit | Steady income, better match for liability profiles |
| Corporate Pension Plans | Growing for credit | Stable income, easier cash flow management |
| Mid-Tier Endowments | Moderate | J-curve reduction, lower administrative burden |
Continuation Vehicles & Secondaries
Continuation vehicles have rapidly evolved from a niche liquidity solution into a central feature of the private equity market. Once seen primarily as a tool for legacy assets, they are now one of the most dynamic mechanisms in private markets — allowing GPs to extend ownership of prized portfolio companies, provide optionality to LPs, and navigate an environment where traditional exits remain uncertain.
Total secondary transaction volume reached $162B in 2024, a 45% increase from 2023. GP-led continuation vehicles now account for roughly half of all secondary activity. Ardian raised $5.2B for an infrastructure secondary fund. Tikehau closed its second private debt secondaries fund at $1B+. The strategy has expanded across asset classes — private credit secondaries, infrastructure secondaries, and venture secondaries are all active fundraising categories in 2026.
How Continuation Vehicles Work
A continuation vehicle allows a GP to move one or more portfolio companies from an older fund into a new, purpose-built special purpose vehicle. Existing investors can choose to cash out or roll their investment alongside secondary buyers. This gives LPs optional liquidity while letting GPs extend ownership of high-performing companies beyond the original fund timeline.
- GPs retain control of proven assets while giving LPs the choice to exit or continue
- Secondary buyers gain exposure to seasoned portfolio companies with established track records
- Fairer than traditional fund continuation — third-party valuations and fairness opinions are increasingly standard
- Coller Capital structured a $1.3B continuation vehicle for Ares' U.S. direct lending portfolio in February 2026
New Fund Launches & Fundraising Intelligence
The private fund market moves daily. Flagship funds close above target in weeks. Emerging managers file Form D and hit the road. Established platforms return to market with successor vehicles. For investment teams evaluating managers and allocation opportunities, staying current with what is launching and closing — before the press release — is a structural advantage.
Dakota Private Markets tracks new fund launches and fundraising flows daily. Form D data is made filterable by strategy, fund size, geography, and filing date inside the platform. When a fund files a Form D, that fundraise is live — and your team sees it in real time.
What Dakota Tracks Daily
- New fund launches across PE, private credit, real assets, infrastructure, and venture capital
- Form D filings filtered by strategy, geography, fund size, and filing date
- Final closes and above-target closes signaling strong LP demand
- Emerging manager first closes and debut fund activity
- GP-led secondaries and continuation vehicle filings
- Over 2,000 manager presentation decks — with approximately 35 new additions each week
Sector Intelligence — Who Is Investing Where
Private markets capital is not distributed evenly across sectors. In 2025 and into 2026, investment activity has concentrated in a handful of structural themes: AI infrastructure and the data center buildout, healthcare and life sciences, defense and dual-use technology, energy transition and grid modernization, and financial services consolidation. Understanding which managers are deploying into which sectors — and which institutional investors are backing them — is core to effective private markets research.
Technology & AI Infrastructure
OpenAI raised $110B, the largest private technology round ever. Anthropic secured $30B. Data center demand and AI infrastructure buildout are driving the most active deployment in PE, VC, and infrastructure simultaneously.
Healthcare & Life Sciences
Healthcare private equity remains one of the most active sectors in private markets. Platform builders in services, medical devices, biopharma, and diagnostics are absorbing capital at scale across buyout, growth, and venture strategies.
Defense & Dual-Use Tech
Government procurement reform and NATO commitments are accelerating capital formation in defense tech, space, cybersecurity, and autonomous systems — with both traditional PE firms and dedicated defense-focused funds competing for deals.
Energy Transition & Infrastructure
Data center power demand, grid modernization, and decarbonization commitments are driving infrastructure fundraising. In 2025, public pensions committed $19.7B to infrastructure strategies tracked by Dakota.
Financial Services & Fintech
PE consolidation of financial services infrastructure, RIA aggregation, and fintech platforms continues at pace. Trade Republic, Janus Henderson, and OneDigital were among the largest transactions tracked in 2025.
Sports & Media
Strategic minority stakes in sports franchises and media properties are reshaping ownership structures globally. Otro Capital's $1.2B debut sports fund and multiple PE-backed franchise transactions signal the institutionalization of sports as an asset class.
Who Uses Private Markets Data
Dakota Private Markets is built for anyone who evaluates private funds and liquid alternatives for a living. The use cases differ by institution — but the core need is the same: accurate, current, structured intelligence that lets you make decisions faster and with more confidence than public sources allow.
Allocators Evaluating Managers
Pension funds, endowments, foundations, family offices, and fund of funds use Dakota to benchmark manager performance, track new fund launches, access presentation decks, and monitor GP activity before making commitment decisions.
Fund Managers & Investment Banks
GPs use Dakota to understand the competitive fundraising environment — which peer funds are in market, how they are pricing and structuring, what consultants are saying, and how their performance compares against vintage-matched peer groups.
RIAs & Consultants
Wealth managers and investment consultants use Dakota to evaluate private fund options for clients, access 4,000+ consultant reviews, and track the evergreen and semi-liquid fund structures increasingly demanded by high-net-worth investors.
Private Markets Industry Trends 2026
| Trend | What It Means for Investment Teams |
|---|---|
| Performance Data Is Becoming Accessible | High-quality private fund benchmarking is no longer exclusive to the world's largest institutions. Dakota's $2,995/year per user pricing reflects the belief that accurate performance data should be available to any team that needs it |
| Evergreen Structures Are Mainstream | Open-ended private markets vehicles are no longer a niche product. Investment teams need tools to evaluate, compare, and benchmark evergreen exposure the same way they benchmark traditional closed-end funds |
| Secondaries Are Now a Core Strategy | With $162B in secondary transaction volume in 2024 — a 45% increase from 2023 — secondaries are a permanent feature of portfolio construction, not just a liquidity mechanism. Research infrastructure needs to keep up |
| AI Infrastructure Is the Dominant Theme | OpenAI's $110B raise and Anthropic's $30B are signals of where private capital is concentrating. Data center demand, power infrastructure, and AI-adjacent industrial plays are attracting capital from PE, VC, and infrastructure simultaneously |
| The IPO Window Is Gradually Reopening | SpaceX may test the IPO market as early as June 2026. OpenAI and Anthropic are discussed as 2026–2027 candidates. Improved exit conditions matter for DPI — the metric LPs actually care about most when evaluating track records |
| Sports Is an Emerging Asset Class | Strategic minority stakes in sports franchises and media rights are moving from family office curiosity to institutional allocation. Dakota tracked six consecutive months of sports capital reports in 2025–2026 |
Find Private Markets Funds by Geography
Private equity activity is concentrated in specific metros but the fastest-growing deployment themes — AI infrastructure, energy transition, defense tech — are increasingly national and global. Dakota tracks PE firms by geography, giving investment teams a starting point for understanding the manager landscape in any given market.
Major U.S. Markets
Secondary U.S. Markets
International
How Dakota Private Markets Works
Dakota Private Markets is the intelligence platform for private fund research — centralizing performance data, GP intelligence, fund launches, evergreen benchmarking, consultant reviews, and document access in one place. Used by fund of funds, pension funds, family offices, endowments, consultants, GPs, and RIAs.
| Feature | What Dakota Actually Does |
|---|---|
| Performance Intelligence on 14,000+ Funds | IRR, TVPI, DPI, RVPI, vintage-year returns, quartile rankings, and strategy comparisons — updated weekly. The performance question investment committees ask most often ("how does this fund compare to peers in the same vintage?") has a direct answer |
| Custom Benchmarks Built in Seconds | Create peer groups that match your mandate, not a generic index. Compare by strategy, vintage, geography, fund size, or any combination. No stitching spreadsheets together |
| Evergreen Fund Benchmarking | 450+ evergreen funds tracked with standardized performance metrics, regulatory filing history, sponsor-level rollups, and strategy classification across PE, credit, real estate, and hybrid vehicles. Performance data is publicly available — Dakota organized it |
| Daily Fund Launches & Fundraising Flows | Stay current on the rapidly evolving fund landscape with daily fund launches, Form D activity, and final close announcements. Over 2,000 manager decks in the document library with approximately 35 new additions each week |
| 4,000+ Consultant Reviews | Consultant perspectives on funds, managers, and strategies — giving investment teams the institutional view before a first call |
| Investment Memos from Dakota Research | Qualitative analysis across asset classes from Dakota's in-house research team — investment approach, portfolio construction, and manager assessment that goes beyond the numbers |
| 300,000+ Portfolio Companies | Private company context behind the funds — sector exposure, transaction details, and revenue estimates on the companies GPs have backed. Understand what a manager actually owns before you commit |
| GP Data & Relationship Intelligence | 70,000+ contacts across 22,000 accounts. Strategy profiles, check size, key contacts, LP rosters, and consultant activity tracking — the full picture of who a manager is and who is backing them |
| CRM & Workflow Tools | Take notes on funds you're evaluating, set follow-ups, share insights with colleagues, and receive real-time firm updates by email. Research doesn't have to live in a separate tab from where you work |
Ready to see Dakota Private Markets in action?
Trusted by fund of funds, pension funds, family offices, endowments, and RIAs.
Common Myths About Private Markets Data, Debunked
Myth 1: High-quality private fund performance data is only available to the largest institutions
This was true ten years ago. It is not true today. Dakota Performance & Benchmarks covers 14,000+ private funds at $2,995/year per user — making institutional-grade benchmarking accessible to any investment team that needs it, not just those with $5M data budgets.
Myth 2: Evergreen fund performance is opaque and impossible to benchmark
Many market participants assume this. Dakota disproved it. By systematically reviewing regulatory filings, Dakota identified performance data for more than 450 evergreen funds — and uncovered nearly 100 additional vehicles not previously categorized as evergreen strategies. The data exists. It was just never organized.
Myth 3: IRR is the most important performance metric
IRR is the most commonly reported metric. It is not necessarily the most important one. IRR is sensitive to timing and can be managed by GPs. DPI — distributions to paid-in capital — measures actual cash returned to investors. For LPs evaluating whether a manager has actually delivered liquidity versus paper returns, DPI is the more honest number.
Myth 4: Continuation vehicles are a sign of poor fund performance
The opposite is often true. GPs use continuation vehicles to hold their best-performing assets longer — not to hide underperformers. When Inflexion's first multi-asset continuation vehicle closed at £2.3 billion in May 2025, it transferred assets delivering a 3.4x multiple and approximately 28% IRR. Continuation vehicles are increasingly a mechanism for delivering more value, not less.
Myth 5: Secondaries are only for LPs that need liquidity
Secondaries have moved from a liquidity tool to a portfolio construction strategy. LPs are allocating to secondary funds specifically for faster deployment, vintage diversification, and access to mispriced assets in a market where traditional exits remain constrained. At $162B in transaction volume in 2024, secondaries are now a primary strategy for many institutional programs.
Myth 6: Private markets data doesn't need to be updated frequently
Fund launches happen daily. Form D filings are filed continuously. Personnel moves at GPs happen constantly. Consultant reviews are published on rolling schedules. A private markets database that updates monthly is already stale by the time you use it. Dakota updates performance data weekly and fund intelligence daily.
Go Deeper
These interviews surface the practitioner perspective on private fund research, benchmarking, and the evolving private markets intelligence landscape — from the people building and using these tools.
Dakota Research Interviews
In-depth conversations on fund performance, benchmarking, evergreen structures, and private markets intelligence.
Watch on YouTube →Watch & Listen
The Dakota Insights Podcast covers private markets intelligence, fund performance, benchmarking, and the data infrastructure investment teams need to operate at institutional quality.
Dakota Insights Podcast
Episodes on private fund benchmarking, evergreen structures, continuation vehicles, and how the private markets data infrastructure is evolving.
Listen to the Podcast →
