Data sourced from Dakota Marketplace, the global LP and GP intelligence platform trusted by thousands of investment professionals. Learn More | Book a Demo
Sovereign wealth funds are some of the largest and most active allocators in the world, and they keep getting bigger. Saudi Arabia’s PIF manages over $900bn, China’s CIC reports $1.57 trillion in total assets, and Mubadala grew 17% in 2025 to $385bn. Mubadala alone deployed a record $39bn last year, up 20% from the year before
That capital is leaning harder into private markets. Several of the largest funds now name AI, digital infrastructure and private credit as priority areas in their own annual reports, and some are rebuilding their portfolios to compete for the best opportunities across asset classes. For fund managers, sovereign wealth funds are one of the few allocator groups with both the scale to write large checks and a growing appetite for alternatives.
And much of that money is headed to the US, often ahead of the funds’ own home markets. To see exactly where it’s going, we paired each fund’s latest annual report with Dakota Marketplace data on 176 direct deals across 33 sovereign wealth funds, nearly all dated 2025 through March 2026.
In this article, we’ll be discussing where sovereign wealth funds are allocating by region and asset class, which themes are drawing new capital, how much they hand to outside managers, and what it all means for your fundraising.
Where Sovereign Wealth Funds Are Investing
Among funds that publish a regional split, North America is almost always the largest destination:
- KIC: 62.3% North America (December 2025)
- NZ Super Fund: 57.1% North America (June 2025)
- GIC: 53% Americas (March 2026), and it added to US equities, its largest investment market
- Norway: 52.9% of the whole fund in the US (December 2025)
- ADIA: a 45-60% policy range for North America (December 2025)
- Mubadala: 44% North America, well ahead of its UAE home market at 24% (December 2025)
The exceptions are funds built around a domestic mandate. PIF holds 76% of its portfolio in Saudi Arabia, and Oman Investment Authority about 61% at home. For US-focused investment firms, the takeaway is simple: the largest sovereign allocators are already buying US exposure. The question is who gets the mandate.
Private Markets Are Core to Sovereign Wealth Fund Portfolios
Mubadala reports 42% of its portfolio in private investments, CIC holds 48.5% of its overseas portfolio in alternatives, and ADIA raised its private equity range from 12-17% to 15-20% in 2025 while cutting real estate to 2-7%. Norway sits at the other extreme: its mandate does not permit private equity at all.
The buckets themselves are also changing. GIC moved to a Strategic Portfolio framework on April 1, 2026 with no separate public and private equity ranges, and KIC is adopting a Total Portfolio Approach this year. For fund managers, that means a strategy now competes against everything else in the portfolio, not just against other funds in a fixed private equity sleeve.
Dakota Marketplace deal data shows how this capital is deployed directly. Of the 176 deals we tracked, 51 were venture, 51 growth equity and 42 buyout. GIC was the most active fund with 48 deals, followed by ADIA (28) and Mubadala (25). Sovereign funds also invest alongside each other: 16 deals included more than one sovereign fund, and ADIA and GIC appeared together in 10 of them.
See every sovereign wealth fund deal in one place. Dakota Marketplace tracks direct deals, commitment history and investment team contacts for 100+ sovereign wealth funds, so you know what each fund has backed before you reach out. Book a demo.
AI, Digital Infrastructure and Private Credit Lead New Allocations
ADIA, Mubadala, PIF, KIC and CIC all name the same themes in their own reports:
- Mubadala deployed a record AED 143bn ($39bn) in 2025, accelerating into AI and compute infrastructure, energy, digital networks and life sciences, and going deeper into private credit.
- ADIA committed $600m to an Asia-Pacific data center platform and calls private credit a core focus within real estate.
- KIC made private debt a standalone asset class in 2024, is aiming infrastructure at AI, cloud and power demand, and opened a San Francisco office.
- PIF launched a national AI company in 2025.
- CIC is coordinating private equity and private credit and building more co-investment platforms.
The deal data backs this up. Information technology was the top sector in Dakota Marketplace, with 39 of 176 deals, and software alone accounted for 27. GIC participated in Anthropic’s $13bn Series F and Databricks’ $4bn pre-IPO round, ADIA and GIC led a $1.6bn minority investment in Vantage Data Centers, and Mubadala was a lender on Telegram’s $1.7bn financing. Those figures are total round or deal sizes, not each fund’s own check.
How Much Sovereign Wealth Funds Give to Outside Managers
This is where sovereign funds differ most. CIC runs 62.5% of its portfolio through external managers, NZ Super about 54% and ADIA 37%. The HKMA Exchange Fund is about 29% external, PIF 14% and Norway just 5.0%, spread across 111 mandates at 103 organizations, mostly in emerging market equities.
The headline percentage doesn’t tell the whole story. Oman Investment Authority holds its entire international portfolio through 210 funds, and Kuwait Investment Authority says it invests mostly through external managers.
The catch is visibility. Kuwait, Qatar and Brunei publish no size, allocation or returns, and GIC and ADIA do not disclose their total assets. With so little in the public record, knowing who sits on each investment team and what they’ve backed recently matters more than any annual report.
Start Targeting Sovereign Wealth Funds with Dakota Marketplace
Every finding in this article comes with a catch. The money is going to the US, but you still need to know which fund is buying what. Private markets are core, but each fund builds its portfolio differently. And the share handed to outside managers ranges from 5% to more than 60%, with several of the largest funds publishing nothing at all.
Dakota Marketplace closes those gaps. It covers 100+ sovereign wealth funds and 950+ contacts on their investment teams, with:
- Direct deal history, including the 176 deals behind this article, so you can see what each fund has backed, in which sector and at what stage
- Commitment history on each fund’s profile, filterable by year, asset class and strategy
- Verified contacts with role, title, email, phone and LinkedIn, so you reach the right person on the investment team
- Filters by region, deal type, sector and contact role to build a target list that fits your strategy
Walk into your next sovereign wealth fund meeting knowing what the fund has done, who makes the call and how it works with outside managers. Book a demo of Dakota Marketplace.
