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Watch The Replay | Post-Call Notes
Executive Summary
Dakota hosted a special webinar on its international expansion, covering the UK and European intelligence added to Dakota Marketplace over the past few months. Rob Robertson, President of Dakota Marketplace, was joined by James Goodman, who leads Dakota’s international effort and AI strategy.
Since June, UK allocator accounts in Dakota Marketplace have grown from 1,500 to more than 3,000, and UK contacts have grown from 7,500 to more than 17,000. Three new datasets drove that growth: UK charities, UK Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS), and European sub-advisory.
The session covered how the team built each dataset, what fundraisers can see in it, and what is scheduled to launch next. In this article, we’ll recap the products and data discussed, the questions answered, and the resources mentioned during the session.
Products and Data Discussed in This Webinar
Why Dakota Built It: Feedback From London
Dakota’s team travels to London at least twice a year, and in June a longtime customer raised a gap. The UK charity market was a channel they actively raised assets from, but it was fragmented and hard to map, and they were piecing together the trustees who influence investment decisions from LinkedIn and other sources. They asked whether Dakota could cover it.
Before the build, Dakota already had strong coverage of the channels UK fundraisers work, including wealth managers, family offices, consultants and banks. The gap was institutional intelligence. Dakota had 163 foundation and endowment accounts in the UK but little detail on who ran the money. For LGPS, Dakota tracked all 98 funds but had holdings for only 9.
UK Charities: The UK’s Closest Match to US Endowments and Foundations
There are around 170,000 registered charities on the UK Charity Register. Dakota screened for those with more than £10 million (about $13 million) invested, because the register shows how much of a charity’s assets sit in cash, how much goes to grants, and how much is invested in funds across asset classes.
The result is the closest thing the UK has to the US endowment and foundation channel, and it sits under the same Endowments and Foundations category in Dakota Marketplace with a charity subtype. Every charity in it hires external managers.
- 1,600+ charities and endowments with combined AUM of more than $234B
- 91% net new to Dakota Marketplace
- 10,000+ trustee and decision-maker contacts with verified email addresses
The data comes from each charity’s own audited annual accounts. Charities file throughout the year, so Dakota reads new filings daily and updates accounts as they land, including when a manager is removed or a new one is added.
Book a demo to explore UK charities in Dakota Marketplace.
Why Trustees Matter
Trustees at UK charities are often volunteers with day jobs, and they decide which wealth manager or investment manager runs the charity’s assets. They meet quarterly, sometimes monthly, and invite fund managers and wealth managers to pitch.
Dakota’s existing data shows where a trustee works. A trustee may also be a CIO at a large asset manager or a portfolio manager at a major investment firm. That gives fundraisers a second way in: reach the trustee at their charity email, and know what they do professionally before the first conversation.
A Competitor Map for Fundraisers
James walked through the Masonic Charitable Foundation as an example. It is a $237 million foundation that was not in Dakota before this build. Its record shows the managers it works with, including CCLA, Royal London, Sarasin, Thesis and Waverton.
That gives fundraisers several routes in: the trustees, the consultant mapped to the account, or the investment manager, since a firm like CCLA may make investment decisions on an advisory basis once appointed.
At the channel level, a small group of UK charity specialists manage a large share of the assets, including CCLA, Sarasin and Rathbones. Among the 100+ charities that use a consultant, a handful of consultants cover many of them, with Mercer and Redington among the names discussed. For fundraisers in the US or the UK, the dataset works as a map of which managers are already in the books and when a mandate opens up.
UK LGPS: Holdings, Consultants and Asset Allocation
The LGPS build added depth on what these pension funds invest in, the consultants they work with, and their asset allocation. It is live in Dakota Marketplace and updated in real time, following the same process as charities.
European Sub-Advisory: Mapping the Platforms Behind the Fund Names
In the UK and Europe, a private bank or wealth manager will often put its own name on a fund while hiring outside firms to manage it. James estimated that roughly €1 trillion (about $1.05 trillion) is managed this way in Europe. The US equivalent is the mutual fund sub-advisory channel.
Customers told Dakota that the previous sub-advisory database in this market went stale after it was acquired, so Dakota built its own. The dataset maps the register across Ireland and Luxembourg:
- 139 platforms that hire external managers
- 3,000+ seats worth $471B in assets
- 713 manager firms and 1,000+ hires and fires with dates
- 3,000+ investment decision-makers at the platforms
For scale, Mediolanum has 125 seats across 61 managers, and Waystone has 322 seats across 170 managers. As with charities and LGPS, the data updates in real time, so fundraisers can see when a manager is removed from a platform and a mandate opens for that asset class. Dakota scheduled the dataset to go live in October.
Book a demo to see European sub-advisory in Dakota Marketplace.
What’s Next on the Roadmap
James outlined the next builds, several of them scheduled for Q4:
- Solvency II insurers: exposures and key people for UK and EU insurers, sourced from SFCR reports, which extends Dakota’s US insurance product to Europe
- UK private pensions: defined benefit and defined contribution schemes, of which there are around 5,000
- Top 100 London accounts refresh: a full contact and information update, followed by the same refresh across Switzerland, Germany, the Nordics, Benelux and France
James also noted that the UK may now have more family offices than the US, and that Dakota recently crossed 5,000 global family offices.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who makes investment decisions at UK charities?
Trustees choose the wealth manager or investment manager that runs a charity’s assets, and they often hold other roles in finance. Dakota Marketplace carries the trustee’s role, verified email and the asset class they cover, along with the managers, consultants and custodians the charity works with.
How current is the data?
Dakota reads charity annual accounts daily as they are filed, so manager changes appear throughout the year. The same real-time approach applies to LGPS and European sub-advisory.
Are these general inquiry contacts?
No. Dakota only tracks decision-makers, such as investment committee chairs, finance directors, CIOs, treasurers and trustees. Each contact is enriched by the data team and filterable by role.
Want to see UK and European allocator intelligence in Dakota Marketplace? Our team will walk you through it. Talk to an Expert →
