Consider the following:

POET does not need money in the immediate future. They will be selling the interposer to SPX at cost. What they get in  return is cash flow from the sales of the optical engines sold out of SPX. We know this because we were told that the cost of building inventory is covered by the JV.

What they also get from SPX production is proof that these optical engines can be produced at very high throughput and at low cost. That is the show me part that a risk adversed industry needs to see. Take a look at the number of major companies that POET is talking to. Based on what we know about the platform it would not be a stretch to think that every single company that has had an opportunity to test those engines are seeing their future. But that future has to provide a pathway from 400G to 800G to 1.6T to 3.2T. From what we know based on the level of disclosure that Suresh has provided is that the platform allows that kind of expansion. And as the capacity increases the cost per gigabyte drops. 

So what is the motivation to get on the NASDAQ as soon as possible? They could stay put and continue to execute the business plan to prepare for volume production out of SPX and continue their path to simultaneously develop high capacity DML based optical engines/modules that their customers want them to build.

POET has always stated that they will uplist to the NASDAQ when the time is right. So why is the time right? Why now? The only logical answer that I can come up with is that the funds that POET has been talking with can only buy the stock when it uplists to the NASDAQ. So the sooner we uplist the sooner we get institutional buyers who see the potential for a very long and lucrative future with POET.

TM, 36:56] On the side we are not that concerned because the product side inventory is going to be handled mainly by the joint venture, into which by the way we’ve not really put any cash… into that. Our JV partner is handling all of the Capex and all of the Opex associated with the JV. What I think we are looking at though is, as we expand into other vertical markets… we’ve talked recently about the wearables market for example, and our ability to develop and design a spectrometer that’s built into our optical interposer platform. As Suresh just mentioned, the question about whether we should be producing optical engines or we should be producing modules. So as we look at those kinds of moves, that’s going to require capital. We have been saying that we would consider doing a Nasdaq listing for example in connection with a public offering. I think our view now is that we may be better off getting on the Nasdaq as quickly as possible, and saving the capital raise for a later date, since we are not today in need of cash.