For much of the past 10 years, infrastructure private equity fundraising has ebbed and flowed — up one year, down the next. Conventional wisdom predicted that once the industry grew, once there were enough managers and investors, fundraising would smooth out. No one knew what “enough” was, but they would know it when they saw it. Well, we might just be seeing it.

Instead of fundraising dropping off, which would have continued its wave-like trend after 2015’s up year, fundraising in 2016 continued to climb. Although 2016’s total is similar to that of 2015 — $56.4 billion versus $55.4 billion, respectively — it is indeed more, and additional capital will likely be attributed to 2016 as additional fund closings are captured and added to the IREI FundTracker database.

Of the 30 funds that closed last year, 10 (33 percent) were mega-funds (funds that raised $2 billion or more). These funds accounted for $42.4 billion, or 75 pe