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Textbooks, case studies and financial models give students the concepts. Public markets databases show them listed companies. What's missing is a way to research the private side: real funds, real deals and real institutional investors. That's the gap Dakota Marketplace fills for finance faculty, student investment funds and academic research projects.
In this article, we'll cover why private markets are hard to teach with real data, what Dakota Marketplace adds to your existing university resources, and five ways professors can build it into courses, student-managed funds and career preparation.
Why Private Markets Are Hard to Teach With Real Data
Public companies disclose through regulatory filings, earnings reports and market data providers. Private companies, private funds and institutional investors often require more specialized research tools.
That gap matters well beyond private equity careers. Private equity, venture capital, private credit, real estate and infrastructure are now central to many institutional portfolios, and students on these tracks need the same research skills:
- Investment banking and M&A
- Private equity, growth equity and venture capital
- Private credit and direct lending
- Institutional asset management and investment consulting
- Corporate finance and strategy
- Family offices, real estate and infrastructure investing
What Dakota Marketplace Adds to Academic Research
Dakota Marketplace covers institutional investors, investment managers, private funds, private companies, transactions and the professionals behind them. For business schools, that includes:
- 57,000+ private funds, with performance data on 14,000+
- 20,000+ investment firms
- 250,000+ allocator accounts, including pensions, endowments, foundations and family offices
- 143,000+ sponsor-backed portfolio companies, within 642,000+ private companies
- 70,000+ private market transactions, with roughly 6,000 added each month
Fund performance can be benchmarked by asset class, strategy and vintage year, so professors can build assignments around actual funds, companies and transactions.
Five Ways Business Schools Can Bring Private Markets Data Into the Classroom
1. Teach Students How to Evaluate Private Equity Fund Performance
Private equity funds are judged on four core metrics:
- IRR (Internal Rate of Return): the annualized return on invested capital, accounting for the timing of cash flows.
- TVPI (Total Value to Paid-In Capital): total reported value relative to contributed capital.
- DPI (Distributions to Paid-In Capital): capital actually returned to investors relative to contributions.
- RVPI (Residual Value to Paid-In Capital): remaining reported value relative to contributed capital.
With Dakota's performance data, students can pick a 2018-vintage private equity fund and compare its metrics with relevant benchmarks. They can then discuss whether it is outperforming comparable funds, how its TVPI compares with its DPI, and why a fund might report a strong IRR but limited distributions.
Why it matters: Students evaluate performance with real market data and benchmarking, not textbook examples alone.
2. Research Real Private Equity Acquisitions and Investment Transactions
Deal courses teach how acquisitions are sourced, financed and executed, but real transaction research is hard without private company data. Dakota's transaction records include sponsor-backed acquisitions and exits, strategic acquisitions and venture financing rounds, and they connect buyers, sellers, sponsors, industries and decision-makers.
An M&A professor could assign: "Identify recent private equity acquisitions in the healthcare services sector." Students examine the acquirers, targets and sponsors, then analyze the rationale, such as consolidation, geographic expansion, operational improvement or platform building.
Why it matters: Students practice the same deal research used in private equity and investment banking.
3. Understand How Institutional Investors Allocate Capital
Public pensions, corporate pensions, university endowments, foundations and family offices make decisions involving billions of dollars. Dakota covers these investors, including allocations, manager relationships and investment activity.
A professor could ask students to compare the private markets approaches of several public pension funds, looking at asset allocation, manager selection and portfolio construction. Others could research endowments allocating to venture capital or foundations investing in private credit.
Why it matters: Students see the institutional investor perspective, which is essential to understanding how the investment management industry works.
See what your students could research. Dakota Marketplace puts private funds, transactions and institutional investors in one place. See Dakota's Private Markets Research Platform for Universities, book a demo.
4. Help Students Discover and Analyze Private Companies
Private companies disclose less than public ones, which makes company research a valuable skill for future investors and corporate development professionals. Dakota covers sponsor-backed and non-sponsored businesses, searchable by industry, ownership and other characteristics.
An entrepreneurship professor could have students identify venture-backed companies in a sector. A private equity professor could assign a search for acquisition targets. An investment banking professor could ask students to build a hypothetical consolidation strategy in a fragmented industry.
Why it matters: Students build company research, industry analysis and investment sourcing skills.
5. Teach Students How to Identify Investment Firms and Decision-Makers
Investment research also means knowing the organizations and people behind the decisions. A professor could assign students to find private equity firms focused on middle-market buyouts, venture firms investing in technology, or private credit managers focused on direct lending, then research their strategies and professional roles.
This is especially useful for students heading into investment management, institutional sales, fundraising, banking and consulting.
Why it matters: Students learn how the investment industry is organized and how opportunities are found.
These assignments fit into existing courses without a curriculum redesign, and they work for undergraduates, MBA candidates, specialized master's programs and student-managed investment funds.
Where Existing University Research Resources Fall Short
Your public markets databases, library resources and modeling software remain essential. They weren't built for private markets.
- Public markets databases cover listed companies, securities and financial statements.
- Textbooks and case studies teach the concepts, but rarely let students pull real data.
- Dakota Marketplace adds private funds, performance benchmarks, transactions, private companies, institutional investors and decision-makers in one research environment.
Dakota complements what you already have. Professors get more room to design meaningful assignments, students get exposure to the research process investment professionals use, and the business school strengthens the practical relevance of its finance education.
The next generation of investment professionals shouldn't have to wait until their first job to work with real private markets data. With Dakota Marketplace, they can start in the classroom.
Request a Customized Private Markets Research Demonstration
Dakota Marketplace can show your faculty how to build private markets research into courses, including:
- Private equity and venture capital
- Private credit and institutional investing
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Investment banking and corporate finance
- Private fund performance and benchmarking
- Student-managed investment programs
Bring private markets into your classroom with five ready-to-use exercises: analyzing fund performance, researching transactions, identifying private companies, evaluating institutional investors, and studying investment management organizations.
Book a Demo to see how Dakota Marketplace can bring these exercises to life for your students.
