u/valkilmerschin

Lumilens CEO (Ankur Singla) gave an interview to 'theCUBE + NYSE Wired' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWxtW6_Hfiw) which throws some interesting light on the outlook for POET.

First, Ankur said at (around 7:10): “our customer is one of the top two hyperscalers in the world”

Previously, the perception had been top three (I think this came from a LinkedIn article), so this appears to narrow the field to AWS or Microsoft.

Second, in answer to the question “So what's the top priority?” (around 18:00), Ankur talks extensively about manufacturing. I've clipped a few parts of his answer:

“So the top priority for us is actually scaling manufacturing. As you know in photonics manufacturing is as important as designing the right chips.”

“We've actually been working on both the factories aspect of it which we've been building in Singapore.”

“We are reimagining how manufacturing needs to be done and going back and redesigning the chips around it.”

“So we invented a concept called electrical optical interposer to rethink the entire manufacturing technique around scaling photonics manufacturing…”

This last comment caught my attention because of what POET said in its announcement of the Lumilens agreement: POET described the Electrical-Optical Interposer (EOI) as:

“combining alignment-free wafer-level optical engine production with next-generation optical chipsets and advanced manufacturing capabilities”

So it looks like Lumilens's EOI architecture combines its next-generation optical chipsets with the kind of alignment-free, wafer-level optical-engine manufacturing technology that POET has developed through its Optical Interposer platform. This would also appear consistent with the wording of POET's announcement that “Lumilens has placed an initial purchase order with POET for the manufacturing of EOI-based engines”

There's a strong indication here that POET's patented Optical Interposer technology is an important part of the manufacturing process for Lumilens's EOI architecture at scale.

That said, the key things that stood out to me from the interview were:

1. how aggressively Lumilens is pursuing high-volume photonics manufacturing;
2. that it is building manufacturing capability in Singapore and redesigning its chips around manufacturing;
3. that POET appears to be very closely involved in the wafer-level optical-engine manufacturing part of that solution; and
4. (and perhaps most significantly), that the end customer is apparently one of the two largest hyperscalers in the world.

The current Lumilens transceiver being shipped to the hyperscaler apparently predates the POET EOI programme but if Lumilens is now redesigning its technology around EOI specifically to solve the manufacturing/scale problem, and POET is manufacturing the resulting EOI-based engines, that looks potentially very significant for POET.

EDIT (and post-script): This interview has changed my view on the implications of Lumilens' recent $700m funding for POET's investment case. Until listening to the interview I hadn't appreciated how central the EOI initiative was to Lumilens' strategy. The scale and calibre of the funding is a significant validation of the EOI business case, of which POET appears to be a key technology partner.

The round was reportedly co-led by Atreides, Bain Capital Ventures, Meritech, Seligman Ventures and Spark Capital, with a broader investor group including Addition, Alkeon, HarbourVest, JPMorgan Private Capital, Mayfield, MVP Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Peak XV, Redpoint Ventures and Seifdune.