Questions about AdvPulse

What is AdvPulse?

AdvPulse finds the advisory firms that fit what you sell, and the people at them to contact. You tell it what you sell, in plain English. It searches what every SEC-registered advisory firm in the US files, reads the candidates on their own documents, drops the ones that do not fit, and shows you who to contact and why.

The work it does is Deep Research. A run takes one question and works through the register, the brochures and the latest filings, then hands back the firms that fit, each with the reason it fits, an angle to open with and the people to write to. Deep Research is live today.

Two tools are free and need no account: the adviser search at advpulse.ai/explore, which searches brochures by meaning and opens a firm's record, and the AdvPulse plugin in ChatGPT. For how a run compares with a general AI assistant on hard questions, read Three deep questions, checked firm by firm.

What is a research run, and why is the list small?

A research run is one question worked from start to finish. It frames the brief, finds candidate firms in the SEC's register, ranks them, checks each against its brochure and latest filings, then finds the people to reach. Most runs finish within about an hour.

The list is small because every row on it is researched, not looked up. Each firm was read on its own documents against your question, and the candidates that did not fit were dropped, each with its reason. That work is done per firm and priced per firm, so a run aims at a credit target your workspace sets, and the default buys a first pass you can read in one sitting.

Think of a first run as one conversation: the first pass on a hard question, to see whether the results are worth going further with. In our case study, runs planned at twelve firms a question returned 47 people to write to across three questions, against 1 from a general AI assistant. Read Three deep questions, checked firm by firm.

Why does a list need no work before outreach?

Because the work a list usually needs is the work the run already did. A list of names still has to be read: does each firm fit, who there is the one to write to, how do you reach them. A research run does that reading for you, firm by firm, and shows what it found.

Each firm that stays on the list comes with the reason it fits and the evidence from its own filings and brochure. Each run confirms the firm's current status, such as a sale or a new owner. Each person comes with why they are the one to write to and how to reach them, ready to export. The candidates that did not fit are listed too, with their reasons.

In our case study, 25 of the 28 results that met every condition were ready to act on: a verified firm, a reason it fits, an outreach angle and a confirmed person to write to. That is the standard a list is held to. Read how we counted.

I know FINTRX (or Discovery Data) — what are you?

If you know FINTRX or Discovery Data, you know a database you search. AdvPulse is research per firm. You say what you sell; it reads each candidate on its own Form ADV and Part 2A brochure, drops the ones that do not fit, and hands back the firms that do, with the reason, an angle and the people to contact.

We name our source: the public filings investment advisers make with the SEC and its Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (IAPD) system, together with aggregated, publicly available business contact data. Over them we built a data pipeline across the whole register with the financial-services judgement built in: what counts as a private fund under $250 million, which audit opinions are not clean, how a brochure discloses a conflict.

The economics follow. A database gives you the search, and the reading is still yours. We price each firm researched, with the estimate shown before you confirm, so you pay for the work a list needs. Why the brochures are the hard part: How many RIAs run private credit strategies?

Where does the data come from, and what does it cover?

From public filings. Investment advisers file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and their filings are public through the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (IAPD) system. Form ADV has two halves: Part 1A is structured, with boxes and numbers about clients, assets, employees and each private fund; Part 2A, the brochure, is the firm describing its business and strategies in its own words. We read both, together with aggregated, publicly available business contact data for the people.

Coverage is investment advisers that file with the SEC in the United States: registered advisers and exempt reporting advisers. Advisers registered outside the United States are not covered.

The public search shows filings as of a date it names ("Filing data as of"); a research run checks each firm against its latest filings. Each firm's official record is on adviserinfo.sec.gov. AdvPulse is an independent company, not affiliated with the SEC. What each half of a filing holds, and what it does not: How many RIAs run private credit strategies?

What does it cost, and what does the free trial include?

The adviser search at advpulse.ai/explore and the AdvPulse plugin in ChatGPT are free, with no account.

A new workspace starts on the Free trial: 100 credits, once, to run questions we've already researched for your firms, priced per firm. Research on your own question, an original Deep Research, comes with the Week Pass and every plan.

Research is priced per firm, with the estimate shown before you confirm. An original question costs a set amount to plan the search before any firm is found, then a set amount per firm; a question we've already researched costs less up front. Your workspace sets the credits a run aims for, and your balance moves with what the run actually costs.

The Week Pass is seven days of Pro's terms for a single payment. The plans are Pro, Max and Volume, monthly credits at a discount off the standard credit price, and Enterprise, for custom volume, terms and support. Plan credits do not roll over; credits you buy directly do not expire. Prices are shown in the app before you buy.

How do exports and the API work?

Every list downloads as a CSV. A research run hands back two files: the dossiers it wrote and the contacts as a spreadsheet. In a search, the contacts download as a Standard CSV or a RedTail CSV, and the firm results download as a CSV too.

The AdvPulse API gives you the firm data behind our research: search firms by name, get any firm's profile by its CRD number, and search the brochures firms publish by meaning. Every endpoint is versioned under /v1 on api.advpulse.ai and returns the same response envelope. Requests authenticate with an API key you create in your account, and they draw on your workspace's credits, the same balance the app uses. Start with the API introduction and the endpoint reference.

If your firm runs on RedTail, AdvPulse's private Zapier integration pushes the contacts from a saved list into RedTail, creating a contact for every person on it. Setup takes an invite link we provide at onboarding, and the steps are in Connect your CRM.

What don't you do?

We don't send your outreach for you yet. Outreach drafted from the research, one person at a time and sent at a human pace after you approve it, is what we are building now.

We don't cover advisers registered outside the United States, and the API has no endpoints for individual advisers: its data is firm profiles and brochure search.

We don't give advice. AdvPulse is not a financial advisor, broker-dealer or investment adviser, and nothing it shows is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security or to hire an adviser. Match scores and rankings are informational. AdvPulse is not a consumer reporting agency, and its data may not be used to decide anyone's eligibility for credit, employment, insurance or housing.

We are not the SEC. AdvPulse is an independent company, not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by it, and each firm's official record is on adviserinfo.sec.gov.

And we don't hand you rows to clean up. A list leaves a run with the reading done.

Who is it for?

Teams that sell to US registered investment advisers: distribution, business development and sales teams at asset managers, alternative investment firms, fintech vendors and custodians. If your team assembles target lists by hand, AdvPulse replaces that work with a question.

It is built for the hard questions, where the answer sits in a firm's Form ADV data, down to its individual private funds, read together with what its brochure says. A fund administrator sizing a market asks them, and so does a placement agent building a list or a lender's business development team deciding who to call. A seller of real-estate co-investments asks for wealth managers that sponsor their own real-estate fund with a minimum under $250,000; a seller of audit-readiness services asks for advisers with a private fund under $250 million that is unaudited.

You get the firms that fit, why each fits, and the people to write to. Two worked examples: Three deep questions, checked firm by firm and How many RIAs run private credit strategies?.