OTC Markets Group (OTCM): Tell us about POET Technologies. What do you want U.S. investors to know?
Thomas R. Mika: POET Technologies is a leading-edge photonics company, designing and manufacturing innovative light source products (chip-level lasers and detectors) for data- and tele-communications applications. Although we are headquartered in Toronto and have design teams in Silicon Valley and Ottawa, the majority of our 100 employees are in Singapore, where we operate a 50,000 square foot semiconductor factory.
For the past two years, we have focused the company on developing a platform technology we call the POET Optical Interposer™ that has the potential to disrupt the market for a key device in data communications – the device that converts digital electrical signals to light signals, called a transceiver. Inside a hyperscale data center there are hundreds of racks of switches and servers that collectively cover the size of six football fields. Plugged into the back of each of those racks are thousands of individual transceivers, along with the fiber optic cables that carry the light and the data from one to another.
We announced the invention of the POET Optical Interposer in January of this year after extensive in-depth research and development as well as two key strategic acquisitions in 2016. Within 10 months from introducing the Optical Interposer, we recently received our first orders for prototypes from major networking and data communications companies. Our technology drives down the cost of manufacturing transceivers, reducing the cost of packaging and testing the optical components of the transceiver by over 50%, effectively doubling the margins on those products for transceiver suppliers. Because of intense price competition within the industry, many of the major data communications component and system suppliers are keen to incorporate our Optical Interposer solutions in their future products.
We are now at an inflection point in POET's history. In addition to doubling our revenue run-rate, the recent orders validate our approach with some of the largest and most influential companies in the data communications industry.
OTCM: What were your major accomplishments in the past year?
Thomas R. Mika: We started out the year with the introduction of the POET Optical Interposer, then in March, signed a co-development agreement with Accelink, one of the leading data communication component and system suppliers in China and globally. We set up a global supply chain for the Optical Interposer by putting into place agreements with Almae, an advanced laser developer in France, with SilTerra, a silicon foundry in Malaysia, and with others to ensure that POET could meet what we expect to be a high demand for our Optical Interposer solutions. The recent orders for prototypes capped off our accomplishments for the year.
OTCM: How does POET Technologies differentiate itself from its competitors and what is your growth strategy?
Thomas R. Mika: From the beginning, POET's strategy has been to develop and offer differentiated products to the market. What makes our technology unique is the integration of photonics and electronics on the same chip-scale package. This proprietary approach dramatically reduces the cost of key components in optical transceivers, and we are the first company to find a way to solve this very challenging and costly problem for the photonics industry. That's why we have invested so much into the POET Optical Interposer. It is a fundamental departure from what all other component suppliers are doing. By applying the techniques of advanced semiconductor manufacturing to the photonics industry, we have been able to completely revolutionize the way the optical components and transceivers are built.
Our growth strategy is to capitalize and take share of the explosive growth of the integrated optical transceiver market, which is estimated to grow to $20 billion by 2025 from $3.2 billion today. Our first step toward that goal is to ensure that our Optical Interposer solutions for data communications are qualified by our existing large customers as well as other large datacom and telecom customers for incorporation into their products. This is expected to drive large organic growth much faster than the overall market, which itself is growing by over 25% annually. We are also developing applications for the Optical Interposer in telecommunications for Fiber to the Home, 5G cell networks and automotive LIDAR.
OTCM: POET Technologies joined OTCQX in 2012. How are you leveraging OTCQX as part of your U.S. IR program?
Thomas R. Mika: As a Toronto listed company, we have been honored to also be traded on the OTCQX market as a way to broaden access and reach U.S. investors. OTCQX provides a simple platform for these and other investors to easily invest in our company. It has also helped provide readily accessible information on our company with reach to an expansive broker-dealer network. Going forward, we intend to continue leveraging the OTC Markets' services with a goal to further increase our overall visibility to shareholders in the U.S.
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