Data sourced from Dakota Private Markets, the private fund performance platform powered by Dakota. Learn More | Request Access
A manager tells an allocator their fund ranks in the top quartile. The allocator nods, then asks the question that decides the meeting: against whom? If the answer is a peer set assembled the night before the call, the ranking is a talking point, not evidence. Most fundraisers pick the benchmark first and the peers second. Allocators work in the opposite order.
Four filters that define “comparable”
A comparable fund set is a deliberate choice on four dimensions, made before any performance figure is calculated. Each one can move a fund a full quartile.
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Filter
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What you are deciding
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Where it goes wrong
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Strategy
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Sub-strategy, not just asset class (lower mid-market buyout vs. growth equity, senior direct lending vs. opportunistic credit)
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Broad asset-class buckets hide very different return profiles
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Vintage
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A single vintage year, or a narrow band around it
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Wide windows blend different entry valuations and rate environments
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Size
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A fund size band that matches your target raise
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A $300M fund measured against $5B vehicles tells you nothing
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Geography and mandate
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Regional focus, sector tilt, and any structural constraints
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Global funds benchmarked against single-country mandates, or the reverse
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The order matters. Strategy and vintage come first because they determine the opportunity set the manager was actually investing into. Size and geography refine it. Once a set is too narrow to hold a meaningful number of funds, widen the one filter an allocator would concede is least relevant, and say so out loud in the pitch.
Where peer sets quietly break
The most common failure is a peer set that is technically correct and practically useless. A credit fund tagged as private equity, a vintage window stretched to five years to reach a respectable sample, or a size band that mixes first-time funds with established franchises will all produce a clean-looking quartile ranking. An allocator who builds their own peer set will find the gap within one question.
Dakota Private Markets carries Net IRR, TVPI, DPI, and RVPI across 19,000+ funds, each tagged by strategy, vintage, size, and geography, so the filters above can be applied to the record rather than reconstructed from memory. For methodology and fields, see the custom peer group dataset.
The same set tells you who to call
A well-built peer set has a second use that most teams miss. The funds in it were backed by investors who have already shown they allocate to that strategy, in that size range, in that vintage. That makes the peer set a starting universe for outreach, ranked by demonstrated fit instead of by whoever is easiest to find. A manager who benchmarks and prospects off the same set walks into each conversation with a consistent story: here is who we compare to, and here is why you already know the category.
The bottom line: a benchmark tells you how a fund performed, and the peer set tells you whether anyone should care.
Build and Verify Peer Sets in Dakota Private Markets
Dakota Private Markets gives fundraisers and IR teams fund-level performance and attributes in one place, so peer sets can be defined, tested, and adjusted before they reach a pitch deck or an outreach list.
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