BAYAKHA Infrastructure Partners

Bayakha Infrastructure Partners is a 100% black-owned, specialist infrastructure fund manager in South Africa, licensed by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority. Established in 2015, the firm was founded by Ngoku-Sakhile Mazwi in response to a growing need for fund managers capable of delivering infrastructure investments with both financial and socio-economic returns. The company's name, 'Bayakha', is a Zulu word meaning “they are building,” which reflects its mission to foster development through infrastructure investment in sub-Saharan Africa.

The firm manages the Bayakha Transformational Infrastructure Fund, which makes equity and empowerment financing investments into brownfield and late-stage greenfield projects. The fund's portfolio is diversified across economic and social infrastructure, targeting sectors such as renewable energy (wind and solar PV), transport, water, ICT, social housing, and healthcare. Bayakha's strategy focuses on assets with high barriers to entry, predictable cash flows, and lower correlation to economic cycles. The business model centers on raising capital from local and international institutional investors to deploy into a pipeline of projects, generating returns through long-term project viability and developmental impact.

A key part of Bayakha's investment thesis is verifying the developmental impact of its projects through primary data collection, ensuring that financial returns are not pursued at the expense of socio-economic benefits. In 2018, the firm partnered with Eaglestone Advisory, an infrastructure investment banking platform, which acquired a 25% stake, enhancing the firm's continental reach. More recently, in August 2025, Bayakha, alongside Knowledge Pele, acquired a 30% stake in Edge Growth, an impact investment firm, to create a platform that combines expertise in fund management, development implementation, and venture financing to scale transformative capital deployment.

Keywords: infrastructure fund manager, sub-Saharan Africa, impact investing, black-owned, project finance, renewable energy investment, socio-economic development, private equity, structured equity, asset management, development finance, public-private partnerships, greenfield projects, brownfield projects, water infrastructure, transport infrastructure, social housing, venture capital, empowerment financing, blended finance