Techno Venture Management (TVM), the veteran German early-stage technology investor, is looking forward to 2002. TVM believes it is well placed to benefit from any recovery in the economy after defying two of the industry's prevailing trends last year.

Fundraising fell overall in Europe and the US, but whatever deterred investors did not put them off TVM's life sciences fund, which closed in November at €336m ($300m). Nor were they discouraged from helping TVM reach a record €83.5m at first close of its information technology fund in the last week of December.