Database referenced is Dakota Marketplace, the global LP and GP intelligence platform trusted by thousands of investment professionals. Learn More | Book a Demo
Public pension funds control over $9 trillion in combined US assets across more than 800 plans, but the platforms built to research them span a wide range, from free academic datasets tracking funded status to enterprise research terminals built for LP performance benchmarking. Very few are actually built for fundraisers trying to identify a decision-maker, understand the consultant relationship, and get on a plane.
We reviewed the platforms fund managers and investment sales professionals actually use to research public pension investments in 2026, ranked from the option built specifically for fundraising down to free academic research tools. Here's how they compare.
Top Public Pension Fund Investment Databases
Dakota Marketplace tracks 1,497 public pension funds with 5,575 contacts and 42,587 documented investments, spanning plans from under $1 million to $2.6 trillion in AUM. The difference from every other option on this list is what sits underneath the number: governance structure, decision-maker mapping, and the consultant relationships that determine whether a manager gets in the room.
Every plan is tagged to its board, executive director, CIO, and asset class staff, along with the field consultants who influence or gate the mandate. Dakota separately tracks 559 investment consultants with 1,708 consultant reviews, since for most public pensions the consultant is the actual gatekeeper, not the CIO. Daily Public Plan Minutes capture investment committee meeting notes, hires, RFPs, and allocation changes as they happen, and Manager Presentations show what other managers are pitching to the same plans right now. Fee Studies add what plans are actually paying by asset class. Data integrates directly into Salesforce, HubSpot, DealCloud, Dynamo, and Altvia.
Best for: Fund managers and investment sales teams who need public pension data connected to the actual decision chain, board, staff, and consultants, not just a funded-status snapshot or a commitment history without a name attached.
See how public pension investment data connects to consultant relationships and decision-maker contacts inside Dakota Marketplace. Book a demo to explore the difference between funded-status data and fundraising intelligence.
Preqin tracks public pension commitments, allocation targets, and historical investment activity across private equity, credit, real estate, infrastructure, and venture capital, using a combination of FOIA requests and voluntary submissions from more than 2,200 fund managers. Its fund performance benchmarking is a particular strength.
Best for: Fund managers who need deep LP allocation data alongside fund-level performance benchmarks. Preqin's institutional coverage is strong, but the interface is built for research analysis rather than quick contact lookups, and family office coverage is comparatively thin if pensions aren't your only target.
PitchBook's institutional investor coverage includes public pension fund profiles with commitment history, fund preferences, and allocation data, alongside its broader private equity and venture capital datasets. Profiles show a limited partner's commitment activity by fund type and region, with performance metrics layered in.
Best for: Research analysts who need public pension commitment data alongside broader deal, fund, and portfolio company coverage. The platform is built around research workflows rather than city-by-city fundraising outreach.
Global SWF is a specialized data and research platform tracking more than 400 sovereign wealth funds and public pension funds, with a focus on the top 100 portfolios and personnel at the largest state-owned investors globally. Beyond data, it runs an executive education program and closed-door events for the institutions it covers.
Best for: Research and benchmarking on the largest global public pension and sovereign wealth institutions. Coverage is concentrated at the top of the market and skews toward research and consulting use cases rather than day-to-day fundraising outreach.
Public Plans Data is a free academic database maintained by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, in partnership with the MissionSquare Research Institute, NASRA, and the Government Finance Officers Association. It covers plan-level data back to 2001 for more than 250 major state and local pension plans, representing roughly 95% of public pension assets and membership nationwide.
Best for: Researchers, policymakers, and analysts studying funded status, contribution rates, and actuarial assumptions. PPD tracks plan health, not manager relationships. There's no investment-level data, no consultant mapping, and no contact information.
How to Choose
If you're a fundraiser trying to answer who has the authority to commit at a specific plan, what their consultant relationship looks like, and whether a search or RFP is coming, Dakota's public pension data is built specifically to answer that. Preqin and PitchBook both get you real commitment history and performance benchmarking, but at enterprise research pricing and an interface built for analysts rather than city-by-city outreach.
Global SWF is worth a look if your focus is the largest sovereign wealth and public pension institutions globally, though it leans toward research and benchmarking rather than fundraising outreach. If you're researching plan health, funded ratios, or actuarial assumptions rather than manager relationships, Public Plans Data is free and thorough for that specific purpose, though it has no investment-level or contact data at all.
Every public pension fund in Dakota Marketplace is filterable by:
- AUM and geography
- Asset class allocation and current investments
- Consultant relationships and field consultant contacts
- Board, executive director, and CIO-level decision-makers
See 1,497 public pension funds and 5,575 verified contacts for yourself. Book a demo of Dakota Marketplace.
