2018 is shaping up to be a very good year for private equity infrastructure fundraising. And much of that good news can be traced to this being a very good year for mega-funds — those funds holding a final closing after raising $2 billion or more in commitments. As of Aug. 1, 2018, 10 mega-funds have achieved a final closing. This equals the highest number of funds closed over an entire year going back at least five years. We already know one more has closed this month, which portends an unusually high number closed by the end of the year. And we know from experience that the more mega-funds that close, the more capital raised overall. As of Aug. 1, 2018, infrastructure funds had closed on $48.6 billion, according to IREI’s FundTracker database. $37.1 billion of that was raised by mega-funds.

Investors obviously love these huge funds, as evidenced by mega-fund’s overwhelming dominance of the fundraising world. By the end of 2014, mega-funds had accounted for 57 percent