This news release doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know. I think this was just a filler release in order to keep stock price momentum going until the next release is divulged (100nm and potential PDA).

Going back to POET’s true value, someone (or a few individuals) last week had mentioned how even if POET is truly worth 10B+, that prior to achieving this valuation we would be taken out in advance of realizing our full potential. While this certainly remains a possibility, a few recent examples say otherwise with one major one standing out for me……..

WhatsApp (“WA”): On February 14th of this year, Facebook announced that it would be buying WA for 19B. Over the course of the last five years, the company has grown its active user base to 450 million users. Historically, WA had only publicized a USD 8M Series A financing led by Sequoia. It has subsequently been discovered that two additional unreported rounds of Series C financing totalling USD 50M had also been raised by Sequoia. As a consequence, prior to being sold to Facebook, Sequoia’s share (assumed at ~20%) of the company is now valued at roughly 3B. I mention this example as WA’s rise has been monumental over these past years with Sequoia being a big supporter of the company and technology; this in turn reminds me of PTK and IBK’s relationship given the multiple rounds of financing it has both helped the company raise as well as personally invested in.

Going back to WA, in 2009 as the company started out its initial seed money consisted of 250K. In 2011, when Sequoia provided it with the additional 8M mentioned above its valuation had grown to 80M. Finally, in July of 2013 (this past year), it raised an additional 52M (via Sequoia) as its valuation was stipulated at 1.5B. From July 2013 to February 2014, this valuation further escalated all the way up to the final buyout price of 19B by Facebook. Quite an increase!!!! This gives us all hope boys & girls!!!!

Add to this example the recent IPO of a video game (candy crush) valuing the company at 7B and I would hope that management understands the potential valuation of what we could have here.

Sandman