Data sourced from Dakota Marketplace, the global LP and GP intelligence platform trusted by thousands of investment professionals. Learn More | Book a Demo
A family office’s ETF book is rarely a passive index sleeve. Look at the holdings and you find a core S&P 500 position sitting next to energy, gold, international value, and sometimes crypto, often from several providers. That mix is the real allocation story, and it is easier to see in holdings than in any survey response.
Dakota Marketplace tracks family office ETF positions from 13F filings and ties each holding to an enriched account record. Here is what the data shows at a high level.
What the holdings show
Across the family offices in Dakota Marketplace’s matched 13F ETF holdings, a few patterns repeat.
- US equity is the anchor. It is the largest category by balance, and the S&P 500 products from State Street (SPY), iShares (IVV), and Vanguard (VOO) are among the most commonly held ETFs.
- Fixed income, sector, and smart beta sit around the core. Treasury, aggregate bond, sector, and factor ETFs appear across roughly half of the offices.
- Real assets are a regular satellite. Gold is among the most widely held single ETFs, and energy and natural resources exposure shows up in larger accounts.
- Digital assets are present. A handful of family offices hold crypto-linked ETFs, a category that barely registers in most institutional ETF programs.
- International and emerging markets are used selectively. Offices tend to add them through broad developed market funds, emerging markets ex-China, or single-country ETFs.
The pattern is a core-and-satellite approach. Family offices use broad beta for the base and ETFs for fast, targeted exposure around it.
What it looks like at the account level
Soros Fund Management pairs core exposure with a visible energy tilt. Its largest position is the SPDR S&P 500, followed by the Energy Select Sector SPDR and the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF. It also holds emerging markets ex-China, municipal bond, and semiconductor ETFs. For a sponsor, it shows a well-known investor using ETFs to express sector views at scale.
Hantz Group has by far the broadest ETF book in the set, with positions across 15 asset classes. Alongside the iShares Core S&P 500 and iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF, it holds active ETFs from managers such as Congress, Segall Bryant & Hamill, and Brandes, plus aggregate bond, sector, and smart beta funds. An account this wide is a strong reference for a sponsor with an active or niche product.
The Connable Office runs a diversified program across seven asset classes. It is anchored by the SPDR S&P 500 and adds developed markets through Vanguard, emerging markets through iShares, natural resources through FlexShares, and a dividend growth fund from WisdomTree. It shows how a family office builds a balanced portfolio from several providers.
Euclidean Capital keeps a compact book built around international and value exposure, led by the Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF and the Vanguard Value ETF, with a smaller position in iShares MSCI India. A concentrated Vanguard-heavy book like this calls for a different pitch than a multi-provider tactical one.
RBF Capital blends core S&P 500 and mid cap exposure with Dimensional international funds and several crypto-linked ETFs, an example of a family office mixing traditional and digital asset exposure in the same wrapper.
How to read it
13F data reflects reported positions, not a family office’s full portfolio. Balances here are the latest reported for each position, but a position can still carry forward from a prior filing period when no new filing replaces it. Treat the holdings as a map of where a family office has shown up, then confirm current appetite through the rest of the account record. The family offices with reported ETF holdings are also a subset of the full family office universe, so these examples show patterns in the data, not the market as a whole.
Bottom line
Family offices use ETFs to build a core and then express views around it, and holdings data shows which products and providers they reach for on each side.
Family office ETF intelligence in Dakota Marketplace
Dakota Marketplace connects 13F ETF holdings to enriched family office records, so ETF fundraisers and product teams can go from a single position to every office with the same exposure. Filter by asset class, sub-asset class, ETF provider, and funding balance to find who holds a competing or adjacent product and how large the position is.
If your next launch or raise depends on knowing which family offices already use your exposure, book a demo to see the holdings on live account records.
