DFX Intelligence vs 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] 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.
The main difference is the fundraiser's workflow: Dakota is built for raising capital, with a 60-person research team, verified allocator contacts and investment preferences, while DFX publishes allocators, advisers and family offices as dated public-record entities, with commitments read from board minutes and no contact details.[1]
Facts about Dakota as of , each linked to its source below. DFX currently tracks 8,224 institutional allocators, 50,650 investment adviser firms and 1,879 family offices, as of 11 October 2026.
Side by side
Dakota comes out ahead on 5 of the 8 rows below. We say so because a comparison written by one side is only worth reading if it is willing to lose.
| Criterion | DFX Intelligence | Dakota | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allocator coverage | Public and corporate pensions, endowments and foundations, with dated commitments read from board minutes. method | States 250,000+ LP accounts and 386,000+ verified contacts, with 75+ investment preference fields per allocator.[1] | Dakota |
| RIAs | Every investment adviser firm with a registration record, keyed by CRD, whether or not it allocates to outside managers. method | States 17,393 RIAs and 46,034 verified contacts, and separates the RIAs that write checks to outside managers from those that do not.[2] | Even |
| Family offices | Family offices built from several kinds of public record, each with a classification, a confidence and the evidence behind it. method | Says Dakota Marketplace holds 4,000+ family offices, with 2,257 added in 2025.[3] | Dakota |
| How records are checked | Records are built by rule from filings and registries; what is reported, derived, estimated and withheld is stated per field. method | Updated daily by a 60-person research team.[1] | Dakota |
| BDC holdings | Every BDC's schedule of investments read position by position, rolled into borrowers, facilities and lender groups. method | Loan-level detail per borrower and cross-BDC aggregation per loan, with 40+ public BDCs tracked.[4] | Even |
| Contact details | Public pages are built around filings, relationships and dated events, not direct contact details. method | Verified contacts, CIO bios and investment preferences.[1] | Dakota |
| Free public figures | Headline counts, rankings and dataset pages are free to read, dated, and carry a recommended citation. method | Access starts with booking a live demo.[1] | DFX |
| Integrations | A real estate MCP server and an llms.txt index for AI assistants; the other graphs are read through the public pages. No CRM sync or bulk feed is published. method | Salesforce, HubSpot, Backstop, DealCloud, Snowflake and APIs, and a Claude app.[1] | Dakota |
Who Dakota is for
Dakota names investment firms and fundraisers, private equity deal teams, investment bankers, corporate venture teams, consultant relations, professional services firms and technology companies.[1]
Who DFX Intelligence is for
Choose DFX if you need to see what allocators actually committed, read from their board minutes with the date and the sentence, alongside the managers, advisers and lenders around them, before you pay for anything.
How DFX sources its data
- SEC Form ADV filings since 2011 and the daily IAPD adviser feeds, for investment advisers, their private funds, owners and registered advisers. Method
- SEC Form D notices, for private fund offerings and venture rounds. Method
- SEC Form 13F holdings, read as long positions in 13(f) securities and never as a portfolio or as assets under management. Method
- Business development company 10-Q and 10-K schedules of investments, read position by position. Method
- Public pension board and investment committee minutes, for dated fund commitments, each carrying the sentence that states it. Method
Every registered source is listed on the sources page. The figures DFX publishes are on the statistics page (for example this one), and each dataset, with how to cite it, is on the datasets page.
Sources for the Dakota column
- 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.
- Dakota, The Complete Guide to Family Office Databases, read 10 October 2026.
- Dakota Marketplace, BDC Holdings Data, read 10 October 2026.
Every statement about Dakota 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. If something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.