Three separate funds are being created to exploit investment opportunities in the battered aviation, hotels and property sectors, The Times has learnt, in a sign that some investors are calling the bottom of the market.

Sir Richard Branson is well on the way to raising more than $1billion from outside investors to back start-up airlines and carriers in financial difficulties. Pension funds, hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds have been quietly approached to invest in a private-equity-style vehicle managed by Virgin Group executives, provisionally entitled Virgin Aviation Fund.

Today one of Britain's biggest hotel property investors will announce its intention to return to the acquisition trail after a gap of three years with plans to raise a €1.2 billion (£950 million) war chest to fund deals in the UK and the rest of Europe. Realstar Group, a Canadian firm with more than €4 billion of assets under management, has raised half the €300 million of equity funding it is aiming for and identified a proposed £60 million hotel and golf resort development in Britain as a possible first investment.

On Wall Street a New York property group is in the final stages of raising a fund in London and in Europe to buy US residential real estate. Weis Group is understood to be on track to secure between £60million and £80 million of new institutional money to invest in large real estate projects in America. Weis Group, which is being advised by Panmure Gordon, is to float on London's junior Aim market in the next few weeks.

Adam Weis and Andrew Adler, the company's founders, have identified key property projects to buy, many of which are owned by banks. Mr Weis said that he believed there to be enormous investment opportunities in US residential property.

Sources familiar with the Virgin fund-raising say that there are strong indications that the fund will raise between $600million and $750 million by the first closing date this summer. Eventually, it hopes to raise between $1 billion and $1.5 billion. Virgin expects to put in about $1 for every $9 raised from investors. It will own a majority stake in the management company that will run the fund.

Stephen Murphy, the chief executive of Virgin Group, and David Baxby, the head of aviation, will play key roles in the management company, which expects great opportunities to be thrown up by the current headwinds facing the industry and from consolidation and deregulation.

The fund is the second attempt by Virgin to use a private equity model to speed growth by bringing in outside capital. The management company has set up a $200 million Green Fund to invest in renewable energy technology and other environmental-related businesses, which has made eight investments so far. The new aviation fund is expected to be more directly under the control of Virgin.

The soaring cost of aviation fuel has smashed airline valuations and could soon throw up attractive opportunities. Aviation is a notoriously difficult investment sector. Three start-up airlines in Britain have failed in the past 12 months. Warren Buffett once joked that capitalism would have been better off if the Wright brothers had been strangled at birth.

A third Virgin fund could be set up to focus on hotels and leisure.

Realstar, which looked closely at Turnberry, the Scottish golf resort, before its £55 million sale to Dubai World, leapt to prominence three years ago when it formed a consortium with Lehman Brothers Real Estate Partners and GIC Real Estate to acquire 73 Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotels from InterContinental Hotels Group in a £1 billion sale and manage-back deal. Ryan Prince, the chief executive of Realstar International, said that the company is principally seeking individual assets worth between €50 million and €200 million in the hotel, healthcare and residential sectors.

Analysts said that Realstar would find competition for hotel assets stiff once properties started to come on to the market in earnest. A number of funds have been set up specifically targeting the sector.

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