VC Interview: Carl Showalter of Opus Ventures
by Paul Ruppert
I ran into a friend from the venture capital world, Carl Showalter of Opus Ventures, at the Dow Jones Wireless Innovations conference last month in Redwood Shores, CA. Carl is the former Marketing VP for Juniper Networks and has a depth of technical and business knowledge in the IT, wireless and technology segments that dwarfs most VC “valleywags.” (Translation: those in the venture world who have no operational experience and yet pontificate on every segment as though writing checks conveys industry knowledge.)
Opus Focus & the Sour Period
Opus Capital focuses on early stage investments which vary from $2 to $4 million for a series A round, which yields a range of 20-30% ownership in a company. Carl and I cover how the differential between mobile and wireless (think handsets vs networks as opposed to culture code vernacular), overcoming the recent “sour period” of investing in the mobile segment, the evolution of 
WiMax and why wifi technology is evolving faster outside of North America than it is in North America.
One aspect which was especially interesting to me is the coverage of Femto Cell development, and Carl’s response to my inquiry about “inside out network development” vs “outside in network development” and which region of the world has an advantage with Femto cell development.
