Gulf investors have raised more than $630 million to fund the infrastructure development of Energy City in India.

This is the most successful equity raising by the project's promoter Bahrain-based Gulf Finance House which is now looking at further investment opportunities in India.

"The success of the exercise to raise equity for Energy City India underscores the strong appetite of our clients for opportunities in India as well as the success of our Energy City Qatar project," GFH chairman Esam Janahi said.

Janahi said the issue was oversubscribed by almost 60 per cent.

The equity issue was underwritten by Kuwait Investment Company.

"Sophisticated global investors have been eying India for some time and are looking for opportunities to invest in its economic development, particularly after the liberalisation reforms introduced a few years ago," he said in a statement.

The project, with an estimated development value of $2 billion, will be built on 300 acres of land in Maharashtra.

"Our product offers a target total return of 75 per cent over a three-year investment period and because of the precautions we took to build flexibility into our land acquisition programme we can expand the size of the project and offer this target return to all clients, who have subscribed," he said.

Janahi said with foreign direct investment now allowed automatically in certain sectors of the economy, the next few years are an opportune time to invest in more projects that help build the economy of India.