StepStone Group has closed a $1.7 billion infrastructure secondaries fund designed to acquire limited partner interests in existing infrastructure investment vehicles. The figure includes the fund and related separate accounts, according to the firm's announcement on August 26.
Secondaries funds buy positions from existing LPs in private funds, allowing those LPs to exit before the underlying fund reaches maturity. In infrastructure, where assets often generate steady cash flows over decades, secondaries transactions have grown as LPs seek earlier liquidity while acquirers gain exposure to operating assets with predictable returns. StepStone's strategy targets LP stakes in infrastructure funds rather than acquiring the infrastructure assets themselves.
StepStone is a major player in secondaries markets. The firm manages over $100 billion across its secondaries platform, according to prior disclosures, and has raised multiple dedicated secondaries funds in recent years. Infrastructure secondaries remain a smaller segment than secondaries focused on buyout or growth equity funds, though institutional LPs have increased allocations to the strategy as infrastructure valuations stabilized after years of record inflows into the asset class.
The $1.7 billion raise comes as institutional investors pursue infrastructure exposure through a secondaries lens. LPs in StepStone's inaugural infrastructure secondaries fund include pension funds, endowments, and other large institutional capital. The fund's positioning around LP acquisitions gives it flexibility to negotiate entry points below typical primary fund valuations while gaining diversification across multiple underlying infrastructure platforms and geographies.
Infrastructure assets acquired through secondaries often carry embedded inflation protection, as many contracts include escalation clauses tied to consumer price indices. Institutional investors have increased capital flows to the strategy, with secondaries acquisitions allowing StepStone to cherry-pick assets from larger portfolios and potentially reduce exposure to underperforming positions.
The close marks StepStone's entry into a crowded field. Blackstone, Apollo Global Management, and KKR all operate dedicated infrastructure secondaries programs. The scale of StepStone's raise is material relative to the overall secondaries market, where annual deal flow across all strategies reached roughly $150 billion globally in 2025, though infrastructure secondaries remained a subset of that total.
StepStone's ability to deploy capital depends on LP volumes exiting infrastructure funds, which typically occurs as holdings mature or LPs rebalance portfolios. The firm's existing relationships with pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, built across its broader alternatives platform, provide a pipeline of potential sellers. Pricing and deployment velocity will determine whether the $1.7 billion clears within StepStone's target timeframe, typically three to four years for a vintage secondaries fund.
The announcement carries no material adverse change language or fund closing contingencies, indicating full capital commitment. If deployment proceeds at the pace typical for infrastructure secondaries funds, StepStone would need to identify roughly $425 million in LP interest acquisitions annually to remain on track.
