If you manage a liquid alternatives fund, a BDC, or a closed-end strategy, you already know the challenge: finding investment advisers who actually allocate to what you do.
Cold outreach to a firm that's never touched alternatives is a long road. But there's a shorter one. Every quarter, thousands of investment advisers file a public document with the SEC that lists exactly what they own. It's called a 13F, and it tells you which firms have already put client money into strategies like yours.
Here's how to use it.
Why This Data Is Different From Other Prospecting Signals
Most ways of identifying prospects are based on what someone said they might do: a conference sign-up, a website form, a conversation at an event. That's all intent. It can be wrong.
A 13F shows you what a firm actually did. They bought it. It's in client accounts. That means they've already gone through the internal process most advisers require before adding something new:
- Looked at the strategy and decided it fits their clients
- Cleared compliance and suitability
- Gotten buy-in from whoever makes investment decisions at the firm
- Allocated real money
That's not a maybe. That's a buyer.
What the Numbers Look Like
The RIA channel has been moving hard into alternatives over the last few years.
Active ETF assets in RIA portfolios grew from $27.7 billion in early 2021 to nearly $400 billion by the end of 2025, according to industry data. The average RIA now holds 17 active ETF positions, compared to just 2 four years ago. Over 71% of RIA firms added more ETFs to their portfolios in 2025.
A growing share of that is in liquid alternatives: options-income funds, structured credit, BDCs, interval funds, and multi-asset alt strategies. All of it shows up in 13F filings.
The Four-Step Workflow
Step 1: Find RIAs holding strategies like yours
Start by identifying which RIAs have positions in the category you care about. If you manage a credit-focused strategy, you're looking for firms holding BDCs, closed-end credit funds, or structured credit ETFs. If you're in the options-income space, you're looking for firms with positions in that category.
Step 2: Filter by firm size
A $200M RIA and a $10B RIA holding the same ETF are very different conversations. Filter by AUM to focus on firms that can meaningfully allocate to your strategy.
Step 3: Look for conviction signals
Not every position is equal. An RIA that's held the same BDC for 12 consecutive quarters and keeps adding to it is more interesting than one that dipped in last quarter. Look at holding duration and whether the position has grown over time.
Step 4: Find the right person
This is where the 13F stops being helpful on its own. It tells you the firm, not the person. The decision-maker is usually a CIO, portfolio manager, or the person specifically responsible for alternatives. That contact needs to come from somewhere else.
Where the Data Runs Out
The SEC publishes every 13F for free. The problem is that the raw filings aren't searchable by strategy type, AUM, geography, or anything else useful for building a prospect list. You'd have to download and parse thousands of filings manually to get anywhere.
Dakota Marketplace solves that. We map 13F holdings data against over 8,000 RIA accounts with verified contacts, so you can filter by holding type, firm size, and metro area, and pull up the right contact at each firm without leaving the platform.
A few examples of what that looks like in practice:
- RIAs with liquid alt ETF holdings, AUM $500M or more, Northeast
- RIAs that have held BDCs for 4+ consecutive quarters
- RIAs with both liquid alt positions and a history of private fund commitments
Who to Call First
If you had to prioritize, go after firms where:
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The position is a real allocation (not a tiny test position)
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They've held it for multiple quarters
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The strategy they already own is close to yours
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The firm is growing (new money coming in means new allocations going out)
Those four signals together point to a firm that knows the category, is committed to it, and has capacity to add more. That's the conversation you want.
Book a demo to see what that list looks like for your strategy.
