One of the most consistent surprises in building Dakota Private Markets has been how few people know it exists. Not how few people want it — demand, once people see the platform, is immediate and intuitive. The surprise is the awareness gap. Experienced private markets professionals who have spent years frustrated by expensive, incomplete data, or by piecing together intelligence from scattered sources, simply have not heard that a comprehensive solution is available at $2,995 per user per year.
That gap is worth examining directly. Because it is not just a marketing problem — it reflects something real about how the private markets data conversation has historically been framed. The audiences that need this data most have been conditioned to believe it is either unaffordable or does not exist in the form they need. The professionals who could benefit most from Dakota have often stopped looking.
This piece is an attempt to fill in the gaps — the audiences we have not yet fully addressed, the economic arguments that have not been made explicitly enough, and the case for why operating without comprehensive private markets intelligence carries a cost that far exceeds the price of solving the problem.
THE ECONOMIC CASE — MADE EXPLICITLY
$2,995 Per Year Is Not a Cost. It Is an Investment With an Immediate Return.
This does not account for the value of better decisions made with better data, the cost of opportunities missed due to information gaps, or the competitive disadvantage of operating without intelligence that peers may already have. The economic case for $2,995 is not close.
AUDIENCES WE HAVEN'T FULLY ADDRESSED YET
OVERLOOKED AUDIENCE #1: Corporate Development Teams at Operating Companies
Strategic buyers competing with private equity for acquisitions need to understand the PE landscape as well as the financial buyers they are competing against. Corporate development teams need to know which GPs are active in their target sectors, what comparable transactions look like, and which portfolio companies might be approaching the exit window. This is a community that is consistently underserved by private markets data platforms — and one that would find immediate, practical value in Dakota.
KEY USE: Track PE deal activity in target sectors, identify which sponsor-backed companies may be approaching exit, and understand what GPs have paid for comparable assets.
OVERLOOKED AUDIENCE #2: Independent Sponsors and Search Fund Operators
One of the fastest-growing communities in private markets is the world of independent sponsors — deal professionals operating without a committed fund who source acquisitions and bring in equity capital deal by deal. Search fund operators looking to acquire a single business face the same research challenges as larger PE firms, but without research infrastructure or a team. At $2,995 per user, Dakota is genuinely affordable for an individual operator — and the deal sourcing, transaction, and GP data available are directly applicable to their work.
KEY USE: Source acquisition targets from the 600,000+ non-sponsor private company database, track transaction comps, and identify equity partners from the GP universe.
OVERLOOKED AUDIENCE #3: Secondary Market Buyers and Sellers
The private equity secondaries market has grown into one of the most active corners of private markets — with secondary buyers needing to evaluate GP quality, fund performance, and underlying portfolio company health rapidly and at scale. Speed of evaluation is a competitive advantage in secondaries, and Dakota’s combination of fund performance data, custom benchmarking, portfolio company coverage, and GP intelligence is directly suited to compressing the time required for initial screening and diligence on secondary opportunities.
KEY USE: Rapidly screen GP quality and fund performance for secondary evaluation, assess portfolio company health, and benchmark returns against vintage year peers.
OVERLOOKED AUDIENCE #4: GP Investor Relations and Fundraising Teams
GPs spend enormous time preparing for LP due diligence — and one of the most challenging questions they face is how their performance benchmarks against peers. Dakota’s custom benchmarking technology, applied to performance data on 14,000+ funds, gives GP IR and fundraising teams an independent, credible reference point for how their funds compare within a genuine peer group. Understanding your own competitive position before an LP asks is a meaningful advantage in a fundraising environment where every data point matters.
KEY USE: Build custom peer group benchmarks to understand how fund performance compares ahead of LP meetings, and track what competitors are raising and at what fund sizes.
OVERLOOKED AUDIENCE #5: Law Firms and Accounting Firms Serving Private Equity
The professional services firms that work most closely with PE — M&A attorneys, transaction counsel, PE-focused accounting firms, and restructuring advisors — maintain their competitive edge through deep knowledge of the markets their clients operate in. Understanding who is doing deals, at what pace, in which sectors, and with what structures is not peripheral knowledge for these firms — it is part of the expertise they sell. Dakota provides an affordable, continuously updated intelligence layer that supports client conversations, business development, and market awareness.
KEY USE: Track deal activity by sector and GP, identify which sponsors are most active in relevant practice areas, and stay current on the transaction landscape for client advisory conversations.
OVERLOOKED AUDIENCE #6: Private Credit and Direct Lending Teams
Private credit has grown from a niche strategy into one of the largest segments of private markets — with direct lenders, mezzanine providers, and special situations funds deploying capital across tens of thousands of portfolio companies. Underwriting that credit requires understanding the equity sponsor behind the deal, the management team running the business, comparable transaction structures, and the broader market context. Dakota’s GP database, portfolio company coverage, and transaction history provide the analytical foundation that well-run private credit underwriting requires.
KEY USE: Research sponsor quality and track record before underwriting sponsor-backed loans, access CEO bios and investment memos for portfolio companies, and track transaction activity to understand market pricing and structure.
THE ARGUMENTS THAT HAVEN’T BEEN MADE LOUDLY ENOUGH
THE MISSING ARGUMENT #1: The Cost of Not Having the Data Is Real — and It Dwarfs $2,995
The conversation about private markets data pricing has always focused on the cost of access. What has not been discussed clearly enough is the cost of the alternative. Operating without comprehensive private markets intelligence means making allocation decisions with incomplete manager information, conducting due diligence without independent performance benchmarks, sourcing deals from a network rather than a systematic database, and monitoring portfolios based on whatever GPs choose to report. Each of those gaps carries a real cost — in analyst hours spent on manual research, in decisions made with imperfect information, and in opportunities missed because the intelligence to identify them simply was not available. For any organization making material private markets decisions, the cost of that information gap almost certainly exceeds $2,995 per user per year in the first month of operation.
A single better-informed allocation decision — or a single bad decision avoided — returns the annual cost of Dakota many times over. The question is not whether $2,995 is affordable. The question is whether the cost of operating without it is acceptable.
THE MISSING ARGUMENT #2: The Compounding Disadvantage of Operating Without Good Intelligence
Information advantages in private markets do not stay static. Every quarter that a firm operates with better data than its peers is a quarter in which it builds a more informed view of the GP landscape, a more robust manager evaluation framework, and a sharper picture of where capital is flowing and why. The organizations that have had access to comprehensive private markets intelligence for years have been building institutional knowledge that compounds over time. The organizations operating without it face a gap that grows, not one that stays the same. The right time to close that gap is before competitors have widened it further — not after.
In competitive markets, information advantages compound. The cost of catching up grows every quarter that better-informed firms are making decisions with data you don’t have access to.
THE MISSING ARGUMENT #3: The Private Credit Explosion Deserves Its Own Spotlight
No segment of private markets has grown more dramatically over the past decade than private credit. Direct lending, mezzanine, unitranche, asset-backed lending, and special situations strategies have collectively attracted trillions in capital — and the universe of firms offering these strategies has expanded to match. Yet the data infrastructure supporting private credit has lagged significantly behind public fixed income markets, where Bloomberg and other platforms provide deep, standardized intelligence.
Private credit professionals — whether evaluating managers, underwriting loans, or monitoring portfolios — have been operating in a data environment that does not match the sophistication and scale of the market they are navigating. Dakota’s coverage of private credit managers, fund performance, and underlying portfolio companies fills a genuine gap in that data environment.
Private credit has grown into a multi-trillion dollar market. The data infrastructure supporting it should reflect that scale. Dakota is one of the few platforms that takes private credit coverage seriously as a standalone discipline, not an afterthought to the buyout database.
THE MISSING ARGUMENT #4: The Awareness Gap Is Itself Part of the Story
One of the most revealing aspects of Dakota Private Markets has been the consistency of the reaction when serious private markets professionals first see the platform. Almost without exception, the response includes a version of the same question: why haven’t I heard about this before? That question deserves a direct answer. The private markets data market was shaped by a small number of large, well-resourced incumbents who built pricing models that assumed only large institutions would be buyers. Marketing followed the same assumption — directed at procurement teams at major pensions and sovereign wealth funds, not at the broader universe of professionals who needed the data and could now afford it. The result is a market full of potential users who have simply never been told this product exists at this price. Closing that awareness gap is one of the most important things Dakota can do for the private markets community — because the professionals who would benefit most are often the ones who have given up looking.
If your reaction to learning about Dakota Private Markets at $2,995 per user per year is some version of “I didn’t know this existed” — you are not alone. That reaction is itself the problem we are working to solve.
THE MISSING ARGUMENT #5: The Combination of Breadth and Depth Is What Makes This Different
Most professionals who have encountered private markets data products have experienced one of two things: narrow depth — a platform that covers one segment very well but has little outside it — or broad shallowness — a large database with surface-level records and limited analytical utility.
Dakota was built to offer both breadth and depth simultaneously. GPs and funds are covered comprehensively across every strategy. Portfolio companies come with investment memos and CEO bios, not just names and addresses. Transactions are mapped back to GPs and funds, not just logged as standalone events. Performance data comes with custom benchmarking capability, not just raw numbers. Non-sponsor private companies are covered at a scale — 600,000+ — that reflects the actual size of that opportunity set. The combination of those elements, under a single subscription at an accessible price point, is what makes Dakota genuinely different from anything else available in the market today.
Breadth without depth produces a directory. Depth without breadth produces a niche tool. Dakota was built to offer both — because real private markets decisions require both.
The Most Common Reaction to Seeing Dakota for the First Time: “Why Didn’t I Know About This?”
That reaction — repeated by RIA principals, pension investment officers, family office CIOs, secondary buyers, independent sponsors, and private credit professionals — is the most honest summary of where the private markets data market stands today.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Comprehensive Private Markets Intelligence. $2,995 Per User Per Year.
20,000+ GPs. 50,000+ funds. 150,000+ portfolio companies. 600,000+ non-sponsor private companies. 20,000+ transactions. Performance data and custom benchmarking on 14,000+ funds.
The data exists. The platform is built. The price is $2,995 per user per year. The only thing standing between most private markets professionals and a genuinely better-informed practice is awareness. If you are reading this and recognize yourself in any of the audiences described above, the next step is simple: see it for yourself.
Request a demo here!
