About Us

About Dakota Funds

Founded in 2006, Dakota has raised and retained over $40 billion for our partners. We have an eight-person, experienced investment team that follows a process driven, institutional approach to raising capital across channels.

We are an extension of our partner firms that supports all aspects of their business development efforts, allowing them to grow more quickly and diversify their investor base.

About Dakota Funds

We are an extension of our partner firms that supports all aspects of their business development efforts, allowing them to grow more quickly and diversify their investor base.

Our Focus

Our managers are specialists within their respective asset classes across long-only equity and alternative investment strategies. We look for concentrated portfolios, single focus, low turnover, and strategies that are benefitting from clear macro trends within the economy.

Of equal importance is the people behind the investment strategies we represent. Our partnerships are designed for the long-term which coincides with our investor timeframes and due diligence process.

The investors we raise capital from all follow an institutional process to manager selection. Our business plans are tailored specifically to each manager we represent.

Channels include:

RIA’s/Multi-Family Offices
Private Banks and Platforms
Single Family Offices
Consultants
Endowments and Foundations
Public and Corporate Pensions

About the Strategy

The Dakota Way has helped us raise over $40 billion for our partners since 2006.

01 Know Who to Call On

The focus of your sales effort should be to call on people who buy what you sell. Or, as we like to say, “Sell apples to apple buyers, don’t try and convince orange buyers to buy apples.”

If you specialize in mutual funds, you need to call on allocators who deal in mutual funds – RIAs, ETFs and separate accounts, to start. But identifying the appropriate channels and the contacts within each account can take a lot of time and legwork before you ever ask for a meeting.

To quickly and efficiently identify who to call on, we use Marketplace, which helps shorten the path to qualified buyers.

02 Know What to Say

This is a critical but overlooked step. It’s not enough to get a meeting with the right person. To win business, you have to master the art of the pitch.

Talking performance isn’t enough. Institutional investors need to understand your story and how you got to the numbers. Use carefully chosen words to bring your story to life while addressing the questions an institutional investor wants answered.

03 Have a Killer Follow-Up System

After getting the meeting and nailing the pitch, it’s critical that you follow up. Typically, most investment salespeople send a thank-you email with some marketing materials. But institutional investors get so many emails, they may never see it, let alone read it or respond.

If your follow-up begins and ends with a single generic email, you’re losing sales. You need a follow-up system that helps you continue the conversation with allocators in a meaningful way.

Meet the Dakota Funds team

Our third-party marketing team is an experienced investment team who has worked to raise over $40 billion since 2006. We’ll prospect and qualify leads before they ever cross your desk, and work with you to establish a detailed growth and reporting plan.