Infrastructure Emerging Managers – Institutional

Infrastructure emerging managers deserve an allocation in your portfolio. Invest in partners for life today to obtain exposure to differentiated deal flow, enhanced alpha potential, and stronger GP-LP alignment.

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Key takeaways

Emerging managers can provide numerous portfolio benefits including differentiated opportunities to obtain alpha, stronger alignment of incentives, and building early relationships with high-potential teams.

Differentiated opportunities

Emerging managers offer the potential for differentiated alpha via regional or sector strategies that tap into niche investment themes often inaccessible or too small for larger platforms.

Stronger alignment of incentives

Emerging managers often demonstrate stronger alignment and accountability as they work to establish their businesses.

Early relationships with high-potential teams

Building early relationships with high-potential managers enables investors to form long-term strategic partnerships while actively shaping the institutional development of these emerging platforms.

Differentiated opportunities

Emerging managers offer the potential for differentiated alpha via regional or sector strategies that tap into niche investment themes often inaccessible or too small for larger platforms.

Stronger alignment of incentives

Emerging managers often demonstrate stronger alignment and accountability as they work to establish their businesses.

Early relationships with high-potential teams

Building early relationships with high-potential managers enables investors to form long-term strategic partnerships while actively shaping the institutional development of these emerging platforms.

Navigating implementation

With unique underwriting challenges, investing in emerging managers requires robust sourcing, disciplined underwriting, significant resources, and the experience to back the leading investors of tomorrow.

Potential for outperformance

A bar chart on performance of private infrastructure funds by manager type and strategy

Notes: The figures shown relate to past performance. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of current or future results and should not be the sole factor of consideration when selecting a product or strategy.
Source: BlackRock, as of September 2025. 1) BlackRock, as of August 2025. Emerging managers categorized as fund vintages I-III and targeting under USD 2bn in fund size. Performance reflects Gross IRR as of March 31, 2025, in USD terms. Note: N=79 and represents infrastructure equity funds screened by BlackRock. Recent investments are excluded as performance is not yet meaningful. 2) Preqin, as of August 2025. Performance reflects Net IRR based on latest available reporting. Note: N=239. Analysis excludes the 15 highest and 15 lowest outliers and any datapoints without listed Net IRR figures.

While dispersion is wider for emerging managers and sector specialists, there is greater potential for differentiated alpha generation.

Higher average performance
Emerging managers have higher average performance than more established managers, but have greater variability in outcomes.

Sector specialists
Emerging managers often pursue sector-specialised strategies, while larger platforms tend to pursue multi-sector and diversified strategies.

Invest in partners for life

The universe of infrastructure emerging managers is growing quickly. Investors who invest now can secure a first-mover advantage, access to differentiated deal flows and long-term partnerships with future industry leaders.

With unique underwriting challenges, investing in emerging managers requires robust sourcing, disciplined underwriting, significant resources, and the experience to back the leading investors of tomorrow.

Access to a comprehensive and global GP network is necessary to identify the most attractive emerging manager opportunities and ensure downside mitigation by selecting managers with proven execution capabilities and strong organizational management.

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