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When you're building an institutional investor target list, one of the first questions is: which institutions are already investing in this area?
13F holdings can help answer that question. By looking at the publicly traded securities held by institutional investment managers, you can identify institutions with exposure to specific sectors, companies, and investment themes.
With Dakota Marketplace, you can use 13F holdings as part of your broader institutional research and prospecting process.
For example, if you're raising a healthcare private equity fund, you may want to know which institutions already hold significant positions in healthcare companies. If you're raising an infrastructure fund, you may want to identify institutions with exposure to energy, utilities, transportation, or other infrastructure-related businesses.
A 13F filing won't tell you whether an institution will invest in your fund. It also won't show you their entire portfolio or all of their private investments.
But it can help you identify institutions that are worth researching further.
Here's how to use 13F holdings as part of your investor prospecting process.
What Is a 13F Filing?
Institutional investment managers with at least $100 million in qualifying assets under management are generally required to file Form 13F with the SEC each quarter.
The filing reports certain publicly traded securities held by the investment manager.
This can include:
- Public equities
- ETFs
- REITs
- Certain other reportable securities
The filing does not provide a complete picture of an institution's investment activity. It generally won't show private equity fund commitments, venture investments, private credit investments, or other private assets.
That's important to keep in mind when using 13F data.
The goal isn't to use a 13F filing to determine everything an institution invests in. Instead, use it to identify relevant public-market exposure and look for patterns that may be useful when researching potential investors.
Start With the Asset Class You're Raising For
Before looking at 13F holdings, define what you're trying to find.
Let's say you're raising a fund focused on private credit.
You may want to identify institutions that already have exposure to credit-related investments and determine whether their portfolios align with your strategy.
Or suppose you're raising a healthcare private equity fund. You could start by looking at publicly traded companies that operate in areas such as:
- Healthcare providers
- Medical services
- Healthcare technology
- Specialty care
- Behavioral health
- Healthcare staffing
If you're focused on energy infrastructure, you might look at companies involved in energy, utilities, renewables, pipelines, or related areas.
For a real estate strategy, you might look at relevant REITs and publicly traded companies connected to the property types or markets you invest in.
The goal is to identify public securities that can provide useful signals about an institution's exposure to the broader area you're targeting.
Look for Institutions With Relevant Holdings
Once you've identified relevant securities, look at the institutions that hold them.
A single holding may not tell you much.
An institution could own one company because of an index, ETF, quantitative strategy, or broad portfolio allocation.
It becomes more useful when you see an institution with multiple holdings that are relevant to your investment strategy.
For example, suppose you're raising a healthcare services fund and identify 15 publicly traded companies that are relevant to your strategy.
One institution appears as a holder of one company.
Another institution has positions across several of the 15 companies.
The second institution may be worth a closer look.
That doesn't necessarily mean it invests in healthcare private equity. But the holdings provide a reason to research the institution's broader investment activity, including its private market investments, investment team, and asset allocation.
Go Beyond Broad Asset Classes
The level of detail in the holdings data matters.
Knowing that an institution has exposure to "equities" or "private credit" doesn't necessarily tell you whether it is relevant to your fund.
For example, Dakota categorizes holdings across 19 asset classes and 236 sub-asset classes, providing more detail than a broad asset-class label.
That means private credit can be differentiated between areas such as direct lending and structured credit. U.S. equities can be broken down into categories such as large-cap core, blend, and growth.
For a fund manager, that additional detail can make the holdings data more useful for prospecting.
If you're raising a direct lending fund, an institution with exposure specifically aligned with direct lending is potentially more relevant than an institution that simply has "private credit" listed somewhere in its investment profile.
The more closely the reported exposure matches your strategy, the more useful the institution may be as a prospect.
Look at the Size and Context of the Holdings
Not all positions carry the same weight.
When reviewing 13F data, look at how significant the holding is within the institution's reported portfolio.
A very small position may simply be the result of a passive strategy or broad market exposure.
A larger position may indicate that the company or sector is more important to the manager's investment strategy.
You can also look at the institution's exposure across a group of related companies.
For example, an investor with small positions in dozens of healthcare companies may have broad market exposure.
Another investor may have more concentrated positions in healthcare services companies. Depending on your strategy, that could be a more relevant signal.
The goal is to understand the context of the holdings rather than simply counting how many companies an institution owns.
Track Changes From Quarter to Quarter
13F filings are filed quarterly, which means you can also track changes over time.
This can help you identify:
- New positions
- Increased positions
- Reduced positions
- Sold positions
- Changes in exposure to a specific sector or strategy
For fundraising teams, changes can sometimes be as useful as static holdings.
For example, if an institution has increased its exposure to a particular area over several reporting periods, that may be worth researching.
The same information can also be used for competitive intelligence. Tracking holdings over time can help show which strategies or vehicles institutions are allocating toward or moving away from.
The 13F alone won't tell you why an institution made a particular change. But it can identify activity that warrants further research.
How Dakota Tracks and Enriches 13F Holdings
Reviewing individual 13F filings manually can be time-consuming, particularly if you're researching a large number of institutions or trying to track changes across multiple quarters.
Dakota ingests every 13F daily and enriches the data before it reaches a client.
Rather than simply providing the raw filing, Dakota processes the data so it can be used as part of an institutional research and prospecting workflow.
Dakota's holdings data is:
- Tagged by asset class, sub-asset class, strategy, and vehicle type across a taxonomy of 19 asset classes and 236 sub-asset classes
- Matched to a known allocator profile
- Linked to confirmed, active contacts
- Connected to other data Dakota tracks, including Form ADV, Form D, and public pension data
- Delivered into Salesforce, HubSpot, Backstop, or DealCloud
That enrichment is particularly useful for prospecting.
Instead of finding a 13F filing and then separately trying to determine who the institution is, what type of investor it is, which asset classes it allocates to, and who the relevant contacts are, Dakota connects those pieces of information.
Using Dakota Holdings Data for Prospecting
Fund managers can filter Dakota's holdings data by:
- Firm
- AUM
- Asset class
- Sub-asset class
- Product structure
- Filing period
This allows a manager to start with a specific fundraising strategy and identify institutions with relevant exposure.
For example, a manager raising a direct lending fund could filter for institutions with relevant private credit exposure and then research those institutions based on their broader profile and investment activity.
A manager raising a particular equity strategy could look for institutions with exposure to relevant equity sub-asset classes or companies.
From there, the manager can review the institution's other investments, contacts, and available information to determine whether it belongs on the target list.
This creates a more targeted prospecting process than simply filtering institutions by AUM or a broad investment category.
Connect Holdings Data to the Rest of Your Investor Research
A public equity holding alone isn't enough to qualify an institution as a potential investor.
Once you identify an institution through holdings data, the next step is to look at the rest of its investment profile.
Depending on your strategy, that may include:
- Private fund commitments
- Current and historical investments
- Asset allocation
- Investment preferences
- Investment team members
- Recent commitments or transactions
- Manager relationships
- Form ADV filings
- Form D filings
- Public pension information
- Investment mandates and guidelines
This is where connecting 13F holdings to other investor data becomes useful.
For example, an institution may have exposure to public healthcare companies but no history of investing in healthcare-focused private equity.
Another institution may have similar public-market exposure and an established history of investing with private equity managers in the sector.
The second institution may be a more relevant prospect.
The holdings data helps identify the overlap. The additional investor information helps determine whether there is a realistic fit.
A Simple Prospecting Workflow
Here's one way to incorporate 13F holdings into your fundraising process.
1. Define Your Strategy
Start by identifying the asset class, sub-asset class, strategy, and vehicle type you're raising.
2. Identify Relevant Holdings
Determine which public securities or sectors are relevant to your strategy.
3. Find Institutions With That Exposure
Use 13F holdings data to identify institutions that hold relevant securities or have exposure to relevant areas.
4. Look at the Level of Exposure
Review the size, concentration, and breadth of the institution's holdings.
5. Check Changes Over Time
Look at new, increased, reduced, and exited positions to identify changes in investment activity.
6. Research the Institution
Review its broader investment profile, private market activity, investment team, and other available data.
7. Identify the Right Contacts
Once you've identified a relevant institution, determine which active investment professionals or decision-makers are appropriate for your strategy.
8. Prioritize the Prospect
Use the combined information to determine whether the institution is:
- A strong prospect
- Worth monitoring
- Relevant but not currently active
- Not a fit
What 13F Data Can't Tell You
13F filings have limitations.
They are filed after the end of each quarter, so they don't provide a real-time view of an institution's portfolio.
They also only cover certain reportable securities and don't provide a complete view of private investments or all institutional assets.
In addition, a reported holding doesn't explain why the institution owns the security.
It could be part of an actively managed portfolio, an index strategy, an ETF, or another systematic investment approach.
That's why 13F data should be used as a research tool rather than a standalone qualification method.
A holding can tell you that an institution has exposure to a company or investment area. You still need additional information to determine whether that institution is relevant to your fundraising efforts.
Using 13F Holdings for Competitive Intelligence
The same holdings data that can help with prospecting can also be useful for monitoring the market.
By comparing holdings across reporting periods, fund managers can see where institutional allocations are changing.
For example, you may be able to identify institutions that are increasing exposure to a particular strategy or reducing exposure to another.
That information can provide context around broader allocator behavior and help managers understand how potential investors are positioning their portfolios.
Because Dakota connects holdings data with other institutional information, managers can use these changes alongside allocator profiles and investment histories rather than looking at the filings in isolation.
Why This Matters for Fundraising
For a fund manager, the practical question isn't simply whether an institution appears somewhere in a 13F filing.
The more useful question is whether the institution's reported holdings overlap with the strategy you're raising — and whether the rest of its investment profile supports that potential fit.
A manager raising a direct lending fund, for example, may have more reason to prioritize an institution with relevant credit exposure than one selected solely because it has a large AUM.
That makes holdings data another useful layer for building and prioritizing an institutional target list.
Dakota Marketplace brings that information together by ingesting 13F filings daily, enriching them by asset class and sub-asset class, matching holdings to allocator profiles and active contacts, and connecting the data to other institutional research.
For fund managers and investor relations teams, that means 13F holdings can be used not just as a reference point, but as part of an ongoing prospecting and competitive intelligence workflow.
Final Thoughts
13F holdings aren't a replacement for investor research. They are one source of information that can help identify institutions with relevant investment exposure.
The process is straightforward: define the strategy you're raising, identify relevant holdings, find the institutions with that exposure, look at changes over time, and then research the institution's broader investment profile.
Dakota Marketplace makes that process more usable by enriching 13F data with asset class and sub-asset class classifications, allocator profiles, active contacts, and other institutional data.
For fund managers, the result is a way to move from a raw filing to a more targeted list of institutions that may already have exposure relevant to the strategy you're raising.
Book a Demo to see how Dakota connects 13F holdings to allocator profiles, contacts, and the rest of your investor research.
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