Infrastructure debt is an investment whose time has come, and the segment has seen increasing levels of activity in recent years. The past year saw a substantial fundraising haul by infrastructure debt funds, which raised $16.7 billion and represented nearly a quarter of total infrastructure fundraising in 2023, according to the most recent Infrastructure Fundraising Trends published by IREI. And in a year when total infrastructure fundraising was half of what it had been in the previous year, infrastructure debt funds raised twice the capital as they had in 2022.

“For years, we’ve seen curiosity in this segment of the market,” says Mark Rudovic, head of real assets at Hodes Weill, “and commitments have not necessarily matched the curiosity until 2023.”

The fundraising statistics from 2023 demonstrate private infrastructure debt funds had a strong showing compared with the previous 10 years. Three of the top 10 infrastructure funds closed in 2023 wer