Kothari Pioneer was first off the block with an information technology fund in August 1998. Since inception, the fund has generated an annualised return of 202.90 per cent with a 1:1 bonus and a 160 per cent dividend. Despite the sharp fall in software stocks in the last few months, the fund is still up 249 per cent in the last one year (as on May 5, 2000). With a B.E. from University of Roorkee and MBA from IIM, Bangalore, R Sukumar has been managing the fund since inception and continues to be bullish on IT stocks. Sukumar is also managing the Internet Opportunities Fund, which coll