POET Technologies

POET's Optical Interposer lets it build photonic chips using the same wafer-scale manufacturing that made regular computer chips cheap and reliable. As AI data centers hit the limits of copper wiring, even Broadcom's CEO has said optics is coming, and the high-speed optical market is projected to grow to between 7 and 12 billion dollars. POET is positioned right in the middle of that shift.

POET raised about 150 million dollars in January and now holds more than 430 million dollars in cash, against a yearly cash burn of only about 35 million dollars. That gives the company years of runway to scale manufacturing before it would ever need to raise money again. For a pre-revenue company, that kind of war chest is rare and buys real time to land customers.

POET's only meaningful order so far is a single deal worth about 5 million dollars, yet the company is valued at over 2 billion dollars. In April it also lost a major purchase order tied to Marvell after its finance chief disclosed confidential details he should not have. Until POET lands and ships real orders, the entire story rests on promise rather than proof.

The Marvell fallout damaged POET's reputation with the exact major customers it needs, and rebuilding that trust takes time. On top of that, because POET is currently a Canadian company, U.S. investors can face higher tax bills until it completes its planned move to the United States, which shareholders vote on in late June.