We have been raising capital in the RIA channel since 2006. In that time, our team has raised approximately $15 billion from RIAs, family offices, and private wealth allocators. We have also watched a lot of smart managers make the same avoidable mistakes over and over again.
Here are the ten we see most often, and what to do instead.
10 Myths about the RIA Market
Myth 1: Thinking all 31,000 SEC-registered RIAs are targets
They are not. Of the 31,000+ registered investment advisors, only about 5,000 to 6,000 actually run formal asset allocation programs and allocate to outside managers. The rest manage their own strategies, use passive products, or simply are not in the market for what you sell.
Starting from a raw SEC download is starting from the wrong place. If you want to understand how this channel actually works and who the real buyers are, the history of the RIA market is worth understanding before you build your list. Dakota Marketplace has already done the work of identifying which firms actually buy outside managers. Our database of RIAs gets you straight to the right list.
Myth #2: Treating the channel as "retail"
A lot of managers assume this channel is less rigorous because the end clients are individuals. That assumption costs them. The people running research at RIAs are CFA charterholders, many of whom came from endowments, foundations, and pension plans. They manage fiduciary responsibility, career risk, and portfolio construction with the same seriousness as any institutional buyer.
The RIA channel is not easier than institutional. It is just different.
Myth #3: Only going after the biggest names
The largest RIAs have centralized committees, long approval processes, and a lot of competing priorities. Mid-market firms in the $500 million to $5 billion range are often the better target. They can move faster, allocate in real size, and many of them are getting acquired by the Corients and Cerities of the world. A strong relationship at a $700 million firm today can become a foothold at a $250 billion aggregator tomorrow.
Myth #4: Using the same pitch everywhere
RIA portfolios reflect their clients, and their clients vary a lot by region. Texas clients come from oil and gas, so income and yield strategies resonate. Pacific Northwest firms skew toward ESG and impact. Miami-based RIAs often serve Central and South American clients who want international exposure. Silicon Valley firms tend to want tech and growth.
Geography is not just a filter. It should shape your messaging. 13F data is one of the best tools for understanding what RIAs in a given region are actually buying, before you ever send the first email.
Myth #5: Taking silence as a no
At a $1 billion RIA, the research team might be three or four people. They handle portfolio construction, manager monitoring, client meetings, and internal business development. They are a cost center, which means their time is genuinely tight. When they do not respond, it almost never means they are not interested.
Stay in the rotation. They will come back around.
Myth #6: Giving up on cold outreach
Cold outreach works. It just works slowly. Every email you send is a brand impression, even if no one replies. When an analyst is eventually ready to look at your asset class, you want to already be a familiar name in their inbox.
The channel is also adding new buyers constantly. Advisors are leaving wirehouses and going independent every day. If you are at the right custodians and running consistent outreach, you are in front of these new RIAs from the moment they launch.
Dakota Marketplace tracks 17,109 RIA accounts across the U.S., tagged by custodial relationships, investment preferences, and product access. Book a demo to see how managers are using this data to build their outreach lists.
Myth #7: Having no plan for aggregators
Firms like Corient, Hightower, and Wealth Enhancement Group are becoming the new wirehouses. Home office access is hard to get and slow to convert. The smarter play is to work both ends at once: pursue the home office top-down while building relationships with the underlying advisory teams bottom-up. If an advisor team already in your corner makes a call to home office, that carries more weight than any cold introduction from you. For a deeper look at how aggregators are reshaping the fundraising playbook, start here.
Dakota Marketplace tracks parent aggregators and their underlying teams through a parent-child structure, so you can work both levels without duplicating effort or losing track of who sits where.
Myth #8: Not getting on the right custodians
This one kills deals that are already won. If your strategy is not available on Schwab, Fidelity, or Pershing, an RIA that wants to invest in you simply cannot. Custodial onboarding takes time and typically requires around $20 to $25 million in demonstrated demand. Start those conversations early, before your pipeline is built.
Myth #9: Skipping the alternative platforms for private market strategies
If you are raising a private credit, private equity, or interval fund strategy, the path to RIA capital runs through iCapital, CAIS, and GLASfunds. These platforms are how RIAs aggregate subscriptions and manage the operational complexity of allocating across dozens of client accounts. Not being on them does not just slow you down. It takes a large portion of the RIA market off the table entirely.
Myth #10: Ignoring product structure
Track record and strategy quality matter, but they cannot overcome an incompatible product wrapper. Mutual funds, SMAs, ETFs, and for qualified purchasers, interval funds and longer lock-up vehicles, are the structures RIAs can actually use. Before you build your RIA channel strategy, map your product structures against what your target buyers can operationally access. The gaps will tell you where to focus.
Ready to build your RIA pipeline?
Dakota Marketplace tracks 17,109 RIA accounts across the U.S., with verified data on investment preferences, custodial relationships, AUM, and alternative platform access. Our database of RIAs is built to help investment firms find the right targets and stay in front of them as the market consolidates.
Book a demo to see it in action!
