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Private equity funds do not publish their returns the way public funds do. Performance figures are scattered across manager presentations, quarterly LP letters, pension board documents, regulatory filings, and consultant reports, each formatted differently and rarely aligned on vintage, strategy, or definitions.
That makes the real question not just where to find private equity performance data, but how to tell whether a given number can be trusted. In this post, we cover where the data comes from, the difference between pooled benchmarks and named fund records, what to look for in a data source, and a simple process for researching a fund's track record.
Where Private Equity Performance Data Comes From
Most private equity performance figures trace back to a handful of primary sources:
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Source
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What It Provides
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Watch Out For
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Public pension disclosures
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Fund-level returns reported by pension LPs, often through board documents or FOIA requests
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Reporting lags and inconsistent formats across plans
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Regulatory filings
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Fund-level information from SEC disclosures and Form D filings
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Limited performance detail on their own
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Consultant reports
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Manager evaluations and fund returns prepared for institutional clients
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Coverage limited to the funds a consultant reviews
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LP portfolio reports
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Net-of-fees performance reported by investors in the fund
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Reported on each LP's own schedule
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GP submissions and fund presentations
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Performance reported directly by the manager
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One party's view unless checked against another source
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No single source covers the full market. A useful private equity database pulls these sources together, checks them against each other, and organizes every record the same way so funds can actually be compared.
Pooled Benchmarks vs. Named Fund Records
Private equity performance data generally comes in two forms, and they answer different questions.
Pooled benchmarks combine many funds into an anonymized cohort, usually by vintage year and strategy. They tell you where a fund sits relative to its peers, such as top quartile or below median, but not which funds make up the cohort.
Named fund records report performance for a specific, identified fund. They let you see how that exact fund performed and how a manager's fund series has trended over time.
Most research needs both. A pooled benchmark sets the bar; a named fund record shows whether a given manager cleared it. For a side-by-side look at the major platforms and which approach each takes, see our Top Private Fund Performance Databases: 2026 Guide.
What to Look For in a Data Source
Coverage gets most of the attention, but four other questions matter just as much when judging a private equity data source.
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Is the data verified? A figure taken straight from a GP's presentation reflects one party's view. Look for sources that cross-check performance against an independent document.
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Are definitions consistent? Net IRR, TVPI, and DPI only compare cleanly when every record is calculated the same way.
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Can you filter to a real peer set? You should be able to narrow by vintage year, investment style, geography, and fund size, so a lower middle market buyout fund is not compared with a large market buyout fund.
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How current is it? Stale marks in a peer set distort every comparison around them.
How Dakota Verifies Performance Records
Every record in Dakota Private Markets goes through the same five steps before it is published:
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Step
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What Happens
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Source
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Data is pulled from regulatory filings, consultant reports, pension board documents, fund presentations, and industry news
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Cross-check
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Each figure is matched against at least one independent source wherever one exists
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Normalize
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Figures are standardized to consistent definitions of Net IRR, TVPI, and DPI
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Research review
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Dakota's research team reviews each record before it goes live; nothing is auto-populated
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Refresh
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Records are re-verified as new documents and disclosures arrive
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The Metrics to Pull
Once you have a reliable source, four fund-level metrics form the core of private equity performance analysis:
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Metric
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Measures
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Best Used For
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Net IRR
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Annualized return to investors after fees and carried interest
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Comparing managers
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TVPI
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Total value, realized and unrealized, per dollar of paid-in capital
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Overall value created
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DPI
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Cash actually returned per dollar of paid-in capital
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Realized performance
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RVPI
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Unrealized value still in the portfolio per dollar of paid-in capital
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Remaining exposure
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No single metric tells the full story. TVPI equals DPI plus RVPI, so reading them together shows how much of a fund's reported value has actually been returned in cash and how much still depends on the manager's marks.
How to Research a Private Equity Fund's Track Record
A repeatable process keeps the analysis honest:
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Define the peer set. Filter by sub-asset class and vintage year first, then geography and fund size.
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Pull the fund-level record. Get Net IRR, TVPI, DPI, and RVPI, along with the as-of date.
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Compare against the vintage. Use quartile rankings or vintage medians to see where the fund stands among true peers.
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Check realized vs. unrealized. Compare DPI with TVPI to see how much of the return is cash and how much is still a mark.
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Look at the manager's fund series. One strong fund is a data point; a consistent series is a track record.
An Example From Dakota Private Markets
Clayton, Dubilier & Rice Fund XII is a 2022-vintage large market buyout fund that closed at $26.0 billion. As of 6/30/2026, Dakota Private Markets shows:
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Metric
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CD&R Fund XII
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Net IRR
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21.60%
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TVPI
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1.33x
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DPI
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0.19x
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Implied RVPI (TVPI minus DPI)
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1.14x
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Quartile vs. vintage peers
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1st
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The fund ranks in the first quartile for its vintage, and its 0.19x DPI is ahead of the 0.09x median DPI for 2022-vintage private equity funds. But about 86% of its reported value is still unrealized, which is typical for a fund this young. The record tells you the fund is performing well against peers, and the DPI tells you how much of that performance has yet to be proven through exits.
Research Private Equity Performance in Dakota Private Markets
Dakota Private Markets tracks performance for 18,765 investment strategies, including 5,262 private equity funds, with more than 159,000 performance records across seven asset classes. Private equity coverage spans lower middle market through large market buyout, growth equity, special situations, secondaries, and fund of funds, with Net IRR, TVPI, DPI, and RVPI on each fund record.
Every record is sourced, cross-checked, normalized, and reviewed by Dakota's research team, then connected to GP profiles and allocator intelligence in Dakota Private Markets.
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