The National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) has raised ₹19,000 crore, or about $2 billion, in the first close of its second infrastructure fund. This is more than 60% of its total target of ₹30,000 crore, or $3.2 billion.
The fund is supported by the Government of India and several major global and Indian institutional investors. These include sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurance companies and banks.
Global investors in the fund include AustralianSuper, CPP Investments, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Temasek. Indian investors include ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Kotak Life Insurance and HDFC Life Insurance.
NIIF also expects to raise another ₹9,000 crore, or around $950 million, through co-investments. This will allow investors to invest additional money in selected projects along with the main fund.
Infrastructure Fund II will focus on key sectors such as energy, transport and digital infrastructure. It will also invest in growing areas such as urban infrastructure and electric mobility.
The new fund builds on the success of NIIF’s first infrastructure fund, which raised ₹16,000 crore. That fund invested in areas including renewable energy, power transmission and distribution, battery storage, roads, ports, logistics, airports, data centres and smart metering.
NIIF said strong support from investors who backed its first fund shows continued confidence in its investment strategy, governance and experience in developing infrastructure businesses in India.
NIIF Managing Director and CEO Sanjiv Aggarwal said the new fund reflects investor confidence in India’s infrastructure growth and NIIF’s ability to invest long-term capital with strong governance and sector expertise.
Vinod Giri, Managing Partner for Infrastructure at NIIF, said the second fund will use the capabilities developed through the first fund and focus on building large-scale infrastructure platforms.
NIIF is India’s sovereign-anchored alternative asset manager and currently manages more than $7 billion in equity capital commitments across infrastructure, private markets, growth equity and climate investments.
