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The Top 10 RIAs in Secondary Cities

By: Amy Sariego, Director of Content Marketing

Imagine it: your boss tells you you need to start doing outreach in the RIA channel because it's a large, untapped market for your firm. 

While it’s an exciting opportunity, it’s also overwhelming, because it’s so large. In fact, as of July 2022, the SEC database lists that there are currently 15,239 RIAs that you could be calling on. 

How do you cut that list down? How do you know which ones are best to call on? There are plenty of resources that list out the biggest RIAs in primary cities across the country — we’ve written some of them ourselves. 

But what about in the secondary cities and beyond? There are plenty of RIAs in those smaller metro areas. So many that the top 15 metro areas represent only 52% of all RIAs in the US.

At Dakota, we’ve been calling on the RIA channel since 2006, and have raised billions of dollars since then. We’ve used that expertise to build out our RIA database within Dakota Marketplace, our institutional investor database of curated RIA firms. 

At the end of the day, there is no magic bullet that will help you permeate the RIA market. Instead, you have to focus on knowing who to call on, and tackling your list over time. 

That’s why, in this article, we’re highlighting the ten biggest RIAs in secondary cities across the country. There are hundreds of RIAs in these cities, but this is just a place to get you started. 

1. Captrust Advisors 

AUM: $655,054,291,754
City: Raleigh, NC

2. Creative Planning Inc. 

AUM: $133,831,000,000
City: Overland Park, KS

3. Resources Investment Advisors 

AUM: $101,682,000,000 
City: Overland Park, KS

4. Fort Washington Investment Advisors

AUM: $78,024,335,638 
City: Cincinnati, OH

5. Dynasty Financial Partners 

AUM: $70,000,000,000
City: St. Petersburg, FL

6. Mariner Wealth Advisors 

AUM: $55,432,642,278 
City: Overland Park, KS

7. Ayco Company

AUM: $55,000,000,000 
City: Latham, NY

8. Symetra Investment Management 

AUM: $47,000,000,000 
City: Farmington, CT

9. Bleakley Financial Group

AUM: $33,940,632,492 
City: Fairfield, NJ

10. Moneta Group Inc.

AUM: $32,888,762,887 
City: Clayton, MO


There are over 300 RIAs in secondary cities with more than $1 billion in assets. For more information and to access the full list of RIAs, we’d love to offer you a free trial of Dakota Marketplace

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