There's nothing wrong with smart money on the TSX, except:

1. The fact that the TSX is not the TSXV. Venture stocks in Canada have the same reputation as OTC in the US; and
2. To uplist to the TSX, you need to do a capital raise. Go read the rules. POET does not need the cash for now, so we will go to the Nasdaq first and raise later. This is a good deal for POET.

Imagine a Venture/OTC stock claiming to have the holy grail of photonics. If you're an uninitiated and conservative investor (by default, most institutional investors fall into this category as their job is to protect their clients' money), you will not buy into this, you'd scoff at it and scoff at the guys trying to sell this to you. Being on the Nasdaq means a lot of analysts have already did the DD on you, big money is more comfortable spending time DD-ing on you and hopefully invest.

Analogy time: you are an employer, standing before you are 2 candidates, one clearly not so smart but has a degree from a US college, another seems smart but has a degree from a third world country, which one do you call into your interview? You're likely going to call in the one that graduated the US college, because the professors and the testing system has done a lot of due diligence for you in certifying this person's background and ability.

Same thing with being on the Nasdaq versus being on the OTC.