The 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions About Dakota Marketplace

The greatest challenge a fundraiser faces day in and day out is knowing who to call on and being able to find accurate, up-to-date information for them to close their deals.

At Dakota we face the same challenge as we're fundraisers, just like you. In solution we decided to create the most accurate and up-to-date database in the industry, Dakota Marketplace. Our platform brings a different approach to the table since our platform is built by fundraisers for fundraisers.

In this article we will offer a brief overview of our firm Dakota and answer the most frequently asked questions we get from fundraisers, like yourselves, about Dakota Marketplace. After reading this article, you’ll have a better understanding of exactly how our platform saves investment salespeople enormous amounts of time when building pipelines.

1. What is Dakota?

Dakota began as a fundraising organization in 2006. And we've raised over $40 billion for boutique investment firms. Today, we have hundreds of investment firms that leverage our information across their intermediary, institutional, and national accounts teams to save an enormous amount of time prospecting.

2. What is Dakota Marketplace?

Dakota Marketplace is the industry's only investment sales database built, used, and updated by a team of fundraisers. With a vast number of accounts and contacts, every account is verified to allocate to outside managers and every contact is actively involved in the investment, research, and the due diligence process that you and our team want to get on the phone with.

3. What types of firms use Marketplace, and what channels do you cover?

All types of investment firms use Dakota Marketplace. From the largest distribution shops to local investment boutiques across both long-only equities, long-only fixed income, and alternatives, everywhere from private, equity real estate, hedge funds, equity managers, and everywhere in between.

4. How is this different from other databases I already subscribe to?

We are the only database provider that actually raises capital for a living, just like you. This is extremely important because we too understand the daily pain you go through dealing with stale and outdated information. Additionally, our Customer Success and Membership Services team is above any other competitor in this industry.  

5. Does the data integrate with other CRMs?

Currently, Dakota Marketplace has a Salesforce integration called the Dakota Marketplace for Salesforce App that connects our Marketplace data and brings it directly into your Salesforce. If you don't have Salesforce we offer two alternative options. Either access our API, or we have a flat-file option available.

6. How do you gather and update your data?

We collect and keep the information updated in a variety of different ways. First and foremost, our CRM was built over the past 15 years by our investment sales team as they've raised over $40 billion across all channels. 

Second, we have an expansive data team that helps keep all the information that we've built up to date and accurate by scanning through email addresses, going through websites, ADVs. As a result, we are the most comprehensive and accurate database in the industry.

7. Is the data predominately intermediary or institutional?

When it comes to the channels that we're focused on, we have full coverage in terms of the intermediary space and the institutional space. Within the intermediary channel, we have about 900 single-family offices, about 1,800 RIAs, multifamily offices. We've built out full coverage within the institutional channel.

Across 900 public pensions and all the institutional consultants, you’re able to click into any consultant account to see who their clients are and where they're being utilized by asset class. You’ll have about 1,300 field consultants visible and tagged to the accounts they play a role in when it comes to both the investor research and due diligence process.

We've also added about 1,200 searches, RFPs, and mandates. Again, all predominantly within that institutional channel.

8. How is your international coverage?

As of right now, our platform is primarily geared towards LP content within the US and Canadian markets. However, we are working on getting towards a more global coverage scale. For now, think of our platform as full coverage across both the US and Canadian markets.

9. What additional features are offered in Dakota Marketplace?

Marketplace is not just accountant contact data. There are a ton of other ways in which institutional investment professionals, like yourself, are using this. Here’s a list of things you will get from your subscription:

• Past Dakota Live! Calls that are hosted every Friday. We've had over 170 of these calls that are tuned in by over 300 investment sales professionals.
• Manager presentations, pitch decks, consultant reviews, fee schedules, and a fully ramped active search service so you're always aware when RFPs hit the market.
• Public Plan Minutes to data analysts who sit on our team and listen in to these board meeting minutes and put it into a digestible format for you and your team.

If this isn’t enough for you, you and your team will get access to our Dakota Cocktail events. We average about 85 people at all these events. The goal of these networking opportunities is get you in front of 10, 11, 12 allocators without having to spend $20,000 and fly somewhere for a conference.

In addition to this content nested in our database, you'll have access to our Membership Services team. You can view them as an extension of your own team. We have a white glove approach to customer success, which you'll find our top goal is to make sure that your team gets the value out of the platform.

10. How much does it cost?

For an annual subscription to our Marketplace platform, it costs $15,500. We do not do a module approach. You get access to everything we do. Additional users are at $1,000 per additional user license.

What do you do next?

If you're still on the fence and you want to learn more about Dakota Marketplace, there's three options to proceed:

1. Reach out to any of our sales team members to get a full team demo of Dakota Marketplace.

2. Reach out to us and we’ll set you up with a free trial to compare us to any other database in the industry and see the high-quality content within Dakota Marketplace.

3. Sign up for a free Dakota Live! Call to see the quality of information that we deliver to investment sales professionals on a weekly basis.