RIA intelligence platforms: what each one covers
RIA data starts from a public filing, SEC Form ADV, which the SEC publishes free. Platforms differ in what they add to it: which advisers they keep, contacts, and history. These are the providers we could source for RIAs, the free source itself, and where DFX fits.
Facts about other companies as of , each linked to its source below. DFX currently tracks 50,650 investment adviser firms, as of 10 October 2026.
How providers were chosen
- The provider's own pages, or its parent's annual report, say it covers registered investment advisers. We fetched each source and print the date we read it.
- Free public sources are included where the regulator publishes the underlying data.
- The list is in alphabetical order and is not a ranking. Nothing is scored, and prices are not stated.
- DFX Intelligence publishes this page and is on the list; its limits for this subject are stated below the list.
The 4 providers, in alphabetical order
| Provider | What it is | For RIA data | Compared with DFX |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dakota | Dakota is an investment research and institutional sales intelligence platform for fundraisers, stating 250,000+ LP accounts, 386,000+ contacts and 75+ data fields per allocator.[1] | States 17,393 RIAs and 46,034 verified contacts, limited to RIAs that write checks to outside managers.[2] | DFX vs Dakota |
| DFX Intelligencepublisher of this page | DFX Intelligence is a private-market intelligence and data company whose Data Factory resolves US public filings and registries into one graph of firms, funds, companies, people and dated events, with a source and a date on every fact. | Every investment adviser firm with a registration record, keyed by CRD, whether or not it allocates to outside managers. Public RIA firm pages at /ria/firms/<crd>, with the Form ADV filing history behind each figure. Records are built by rule from filings and registries; what is reported, derived, estimated and withheld is stated per field. | Where DFX is weaker |
| FINTRX | FINTRX is a private wealth intelligence platform covering family offices, registered investment advisers, broker-dealers, wealth teams, banks and trusts, and endowments and foundations.[3][4] | States coverage of 46,000+ RIA and broker-dealer firms and 802,000+ registered reps, with public RIA profiles.[4][5] | DFX vs FINTRX |
| SEC Form ADV data (free) | The SEC publishes historical Form ADV filing data for SEC registered and exempt reporting advisers, from January 2001 to the latest quarter, as free CSV files.[6] | The filings every RIA dataset is built from, as published by the regulator.[6] | Free public source |
Where DFX fits, and where it is weaker
What DFX covers for RIA data:
- Every investment adviser firm with a registration record, keyed by CRD, whether or not it allocates to outside managers. method
- Public RIA firm pages at /ria/firms/<crd>, with the Form ADV filing history behind each figure. method
- Records are built by rule from filings and registries; what is reported, derived, estimated and withheld is stated per field. method
Where DFX is weaker:
- Investment adviser firms and registered individual advisers, keyed by CRD. FINRA BrokerCheck is not crawled, so there is no broker-dealer branch dataset. method
- Public pages are built around filings, relationships and dated events, not direct contact details. method
Each DFX dataset, with its method, coverage and how to cite it, is on the datasets page.
Sources
- Dakota home page (page title: Dakota | Investment Research & Institutional Sales Intelligence), read 10 October 2026.
- Dakota RIAs (page title: Dakota RIAs | The Most Complete RIA Database for Investment Sales), read 10 October 2026.
- FINTRX llms.txt, read 10 October 2026.
- FINTRX home page, read 10 October 2026.
- FINTRX firm directory llms.txt, read 10 October 2026.
- SEC, Information about Registered Investment Advisers and Exempt Reporting Advisers, read 10 October 2026.
Every statement about another company on this page comes from the sources above, read on the dates shown. We do not state prices, ratings or judgements about another company's data, and the order of the list is alphabetical. If something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
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