African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) has raised an additional $80m (€65m) for its third mid-market infrastructure investment fund.

The African Infrastructure Investment Fund 3 (AIIF3) fund, which announced a $320m fundraise in July last year, has now received the additional capital, to continue its strategy of investing in the power, transport, digital infrastructure and midstream energy sectors across sub-Saharan Africa.

The capital increase was open to existing limited partners and closed in mid-November.

The manager said the fund has so far made investments in nine assets, with the additional commitments expected to be deployed across a further two transactions in the energy and digital infrastructure sectors as well as the growth requirements for existing platforms within the portfolio.

Seven of the assets are already operational and delivering in line with their original investment thesis, with a further two assets expected to commence commercial operations in early 2021, moving the fund into the yielding stage, AIIM said.

Paul Frankish, investment director at AIIM, said: “AIIF3 continues its strategy of targeting mid-market opportunities, focusing on executing deals in the $20m-60m range – a space we believe is less competitive and carries less execution risk than some of the large-cap deals.

“This allows us to consider strategic deals in countries with high-growth prospects and sectors that have shown greater resilience to COVID-19 impacts, without being limited to a smaller grouping of countries with the scale to support mega deals.”

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