Dakota Marketplace is the global LP and GP intelligence platform trusted by thousands of investment professionals, and it now connects directly to Claude. Learn More | Book a Demo
Fund managers already know Dakota Marketplace has the allocator data. That was never the problem.
The problem was the switching. Log into Marketplace. Run a filter. Export a list. Paste it into whatever tool you actually work in. Repeat every time the criteria change.
That extra step is where prospecting momentum dies.
Connect Dakota Marketplace to Claude and it goes away. You ask for what you need in plain English, right in the window where you're already drafting an email or prepping for a call. Claude pulls the real accounts and contacts back to you, no exporting, no re-logging in, no losing your train of thought mid-search.
In this article we’ll review what this Claude connection actually gets you, how to set it up in four steps, example prompts to run once it's live, and quick fixes if something's not working.
What You Actually Get Out of This
Two things make this worth the five minutes of setup:
You stop context-switching.
Right now, a filter change means going back to Marketplace, rerunning the search, and re-exporting. With the connector on, you just ask a follow-up question in the same conversation: narrow by AUM, add a state, swap the asset class. Claude keeps the thread going instead of you starting over.
You're not getting guesses.
Claude pulls directly from your live Dakota Marketplace access, so the accounts and contacts it returns are real, not estimated or invented. If something isn't in your Marketplace data, Claude tells you that instead of filling in a plausible-sounding answer. And it only shows you what your own subscription already covers, so there's no risk of seeing data outside your access.
Setting It Up: Four Steps
1. Confirm what you need before you start. You'll need an active Dakota Marketplace subscription and a Claude account on Free, Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise. No separate license or add-on is required beyond your existing Marketplace access.
2. Add the connector. On an individual Pro or Max plan, go to Customize > Connectors, click the "+" button, select "Add custom connector," and paste in the Dakota Marketplace MCP server URL. Click "Add," then authenticate.
3. Note the Team and Enterprise difference. On Team or Enterprise plans, individual members can't add a custom connector directly. An Owner or Primary Owner has to add it first, through Organization Settings > Connectors > Add. Once it's added at the org level, each member connects and authenticates individually, so Claude still only accesses what that person's own Marketplace login allows.
4. Turn it on per conversation. Connectors in Claude are enabled conversation by conversation. Click the "+" button in the chat window, select Connectors, and toggle Dakota Marketplace on before you start asking questions.
That's the whole setup. Most fund managers are running their first query in under five minutes, and from here on it's just part of how you prospect.
You’ve Connected Dakota Marketplace Data, Now What?
The value shows up in the follow-up questions as much as the first one. Ask, then narrow, then narrow again, all without leaving the conversation:
- "Find family offices in the Northeast with more than $500M in AUM that invest in private credit."
- "Pull me the top consultants covering public pension mandates in the Southeast."
- "Who are the decision makers at [allocator name], and what's their current investment focus?"
- "Show me public pension funds by asset class allocation for plans over $5B."
- "List emerging manager program contacts at RIAs in California."
Claude returns the matching accounts and contacts directly in the conversation, and you can immediately follow up, narrow the filter, or ask a second question, without re-running a search from scratch.
Troubleshooting Quick-Reference
Connector not returning results: Confirm the connector is toggled on for that specific conversation. Connectors don't carry over automatically between chats.
Connector missing from the "+" menu: Check that it was added successfully under Customize > Connectors. If it's not listed there, the initial setup in Step 2 (or Step 3, for Team/Enterprise) didn't complete.
Team or Enterprise users can't add it themselves: This is expected behavior, not a bug. Only an Owner or Primary Owner can add a custom connector at the organization level. Once they do, individual members connect and authenticate on their own.
If you're ready to see what it looks like with your own prospecting list, book a demo and we'll walk through it live.
