September 30, 2026

How Allocators Use Dakota's Performance Data During Manager Due Diligence

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Data sourced from Dakota Private Markets, the private fund performance platform powered by Dakota. Learn More | Request Access

A GP's pitch deck shows a clean net IRR and a top quartile TVPI, and the allocator's diligence lead doesn't take either number at face value. The first move is pulling the fund's performance history independently and checking it against what the deck presents, because the gap between the two, if there is one, tells you more than either number alone. That verification step has become standard practice, and it's exactly where a structured performance dataset earns its place in the process.

What Allocators Actually Check First

Diligence teams don't start with the headline metric. They start with the components underneath it. DPI shows what's actually been returned in cash, RVPI shows what the GP is still carrying on the books as unrealized, and the ratio between the two tells you how much of the reported TVPI is real versus projected. A fund three years past its investment period with a TVPI still mostly composed of RVPI is telling a different story than one where DPI is doing most of the work, even if the headline number looks identical.

Where Vintage Year Context Changes the Read

A fund's performance means nothing in isolation. Diligence teams place it against a vintage year peer set to see whether strong numbers reflect manager skill or a strong vintage lifting every fund in the cohort. This is where sample size and peer set construction matter most, a comparison against three loosely similar funds isn't the same diligence exercise as one against a well-populated, strategy-matched cohort. Allocators who skip this step risk crediting a manager for market timing they didn't control.

Building the Full Picture Before the IC Memo

By the time performance data reaches an investment committee memo, it's been cross-checked against independent records, benchmarked against a real peer set, and broken into its component parts rather than presented as a single headline figure. That's the difference between diligence that takes a GP's numbers at face value and diligence that can defend a recommendation when a trustee asks a hard question six months later.

Dakota Private Markets tracks performance on over 18,000 private funds, tagged by vintage year, asset class, and sub-asset class, giving allocators an independent source to verify GP-reported figures rather than relying solely on what's in the deck.

Bottom line: performance data only holds up in diligence once it's been independently verified, broken into its components, and benchmarked against a real peer set, and allocators who build that habit catch what a clean pitch deck is designed not to show.

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