a) Vivek Rajgahira is a breath of fresh air. His understanding of the market and the product landscape provides a level of communication with shareholders that has been forever missing. While Suresh Venkatesan can get caught up in the weeds of the science and the complexities of it, Rajgahira spoke concisely about POET's customers and product development. He's clearly had experience speaking with investors and knows either by instinct or learning how to stay on message.

 

b) Some gamesmanship on why they can't name their industry partners. Yes, the established North American players haven't signed off on any publicity in their relationship with POET but if those players bring an optical interposer-enabled product to market, they will want to announce what makes that product unique and why it gives them a competitive advantage. At that time, they will announce their involvement with POET (and in my opinion that will spur an acquisition of the company -- too much consolidation in the industry for this not to happen).

 

c) The confidence in the Sanan JV being signed and the expectation that Sanan's sales role will open POET products to the industry is a massive endorsement. The leading compound semiconductor manufacturer in the world partnering with a small company should have the same effect as a venture capital firm agreeing to fund a start-up. Sanan has done its due diligence and decided POET has passed its tests so far.

 

d) Reasonable and mostly positive explanation on where things stand with Denselight. They're a small foundry and POET has big plans that DL may/may not be able to impact.

 

e) Third-party product validation for mass production is the hurdle to market penetration and industry adoption. The hires of Rajgahira and the Allentown team, the planned growth of operations in Shenzhen, and the confidence around the Sanan JV would suggest a feeling of inevitability inside the company that third-party validation is on the horizon.

 

f) The POET Platform is the most compelling part of this company's story for the industry. It is setting itself up to be the foundational tool for optical integration, creating off-the-shelf products that can be plugged into customers' existing product lines. For most of the past two years, my chief consulting client has been a London-based blockchain company headed by the inventor of Bitcoin. Its goal toward monetization is to become the foundational computing system for businesses (essentially replacing SAP and the like). To do it, they create products that can be integrated with some tweaks and service support into existing infrastructure and over time they can continue to sell into their clients' ecosystem. It's a method for sustainable growth and stable revenue.

 

I'll share some of my reporting efforts on the company when I get some time. None of it has proven journalistically fruitful (otherwise it would have been published somewhere), but you might find some tidbidts interesting nonetheless.

 

On another note, watch the Off-Topic board for investor info on my tech company that I think some of you will find intriguing. We're on the verge of receiving venture funding from a well-known Canadian billionaire and bringing a Hockey Hall of Famer into our investor group, and we have an imminent revenue deal with one of the major Canadian banks. Once our current seed round closes, we'll be broadening our investor search and I'll make a detailed post about how you can learn more.