Ask DFX

Where it is

• The Ask page (/data-factory/ask), Ask in the Data Factory bar, the box on the Data Factory home, the box under each market landing's doors, and Cmd-K.
• A question asked from a market is read as that market's question unless it names another market. The Ask page says which market it is reading through and links to Ask across every market.

How it answers

A planner reads your question and chooses which parts of the graph to read, those reads run, and rows are ranked with the graph's own reasons and sources. The facts in a row come from the graph, not from a model. The model writes the reading of your question (shown as the interpretation) and a short explanation, and both are labelled.

Depth

• Fast (quick lookup, 15 to 30 seconds): reads the best fitting data once. The trial and every paid plan.
• Standard (checked answer, 30 to 60 seconds): writes a research plan, checks the answer against it, computes real counts. The trial and every paid plan.
• Deep (investigated answer, 2 to 4 minutes): chains across markets, looks for evidence against each lead, and labels every claim KNOWN, STRONGLY INFERRED, POSSIBLE or UNKNOWN. Platform and Advantage, or the 7-day free trial. Platform includes 2 Deep answers a month, Advantage up to 10 a day, the trial 2 in total.
• High Output (analyst research): a DFX analyst works the whole question and gets back to you within 24 hours. It is a paid request: $495, or $100 for a member on a paid plan.

How many questions

Ask DFX is part of the paid plans and the 7-day free trial; a free account and a reader without an account do not ask. Ask DFX answers spend research credits: Fast 1, Standard 2, Deep 5, shared by you and your agents. The trial, 20 credits over the trial. Platform 50 a month, Advantage 150 a month, Institutional by agreement. The same question asked twice within 24 hours, by you or your agent, is charged once. Members who joined before research credits keep the Ask allowance printed when they joined until their renewal. A link that opens Ask with a question in it runs that question when it opens, and counts as one.

Questions that work well

• Private equity firms in Chicago that buy industrial companies
• Which family offices in Texas invest directly in software companies?
• Independent sponsors who closed an industrial deal in the last 12 months and need equity
• Which public pensions committed to private credit funds in the last year?
• Find PE-backed healthcare companies in Texas with debt maturing before 2027

A weak or empty answer

• The banner says what happened: Answered from the graph, with caveats (a constraint was relaxed, and it says which), DFX holds no matching record, DFX could not run this as asked, or The graph did not answer (an error, not an empty market).
• Read the interpretation. If it misread you, rephrase with the market, the geography, the size and the time window stated plainly.
• Widen one constraint at a time (a region instead of a city, a size band instead of a point).
• Try Standard or Deep for questions that need several steps.