Actis, a growth markets investor, has reached final closing on its fourth energy fund Actis Energy 4 (AE4) with commitments hitting a hardcap at $2.75bn. 

The fund was raised by Actis’ in-house team and was significantly oversubscribed, smashing its original $2bn target size in just over seven months.

Neil Brown, Partner and Head of the Investor Development Group at Actis, said: ”This fundraise was achieved very swiftly - we went to market in July and the appetite from existing investors to back the compelling market opportunity, track record of the management team and pipeline we presented was overwhelming.” 

“The success and speed of this is a testament to the strength of the relationships we have built as a general partner with our investor base,” he said.

The fund will invest in select countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia targeting control investments in electricity generation businesses offering scale, diversification and growth and market leading high growth electricity distribution businesses. 

AE4 already has an extremely strong pipeline with $2bn of deal equity either completed or in late stage including four large scale regional platforms.

Demand for electricity and quality infrastructure in growth markets is high and rising. 

Energy services are crucial to a country’s economic development. 

An estimated $10trn of investment is required by 2035 across non-OECD countries to meet future demand. 

Mikael Karlsson, Partner and Co-Head of the energy business at Actis, said: “As the leading growth market investor in the energy sector we have never seen a more compelling market opportunity.” 

“The demand for new investment within the electricity sector is $1.5bn  every  day with renewable energy generating $0.5bn of investments per day in non-OECD countries. We are delighted that our investors share our  vision for this opportunity and we are grateful to them for placing their trust in our proposition.”

Since inception Actis has raised cumulative commitments of over $5.6bn and is committed to 30+ transactions in the Fund's target markets.

To date, Actis portfolio companies have provided 68 million people with access to electricity and built 15GW of generating capacity.

This fund closing follows a slew of successful exits from previous funds including GME (Latin America), Umeme (Uganda), Energuate (Guatemala) and Globeleq (Africa).