POET Technologies: Sandeep Kumar Takes Over Operations as Lawsuits and a Canceled Contract Cloud the Horizon

POET Technologies faces three class-action lawsuits and lost a key customer, but a $400M cash injection and $50M Lumilens order keep the operational story alive amid extreme stock volatility.

POET Technologies has spent months painting a picture of a company on the cusp of a manufacturing breakthrough — a $400 million cash injection, a big Lumilens order, and a new COO tasked with industrializing its photonic engines. But a flurry of class-action lawsuits and the loss of a marquee customer have added a legal dimension that threatens to overshadow the operational story.

The stock’s recent gyrations reflect that tension. Bouncing around 9.50 euros, the shares have surrendered nearly half their value since hitting an all-time high of 18.84 euros in mid-May. The drop accelerated when word emerged that Celestial AI, a key customer reached through Marvell Semiconductor, had canceled all its orders after an interview by board member Thomas Mika allegedly breached confidentiality. The stock cratered roughly 47 percent in a single session. Over the past seven days, it has lost another 29 percent, closing at 9.51 euros in the latest session. Still, on a year-to-date basis the shares are up more than 55 percent, and the 12-month gain remains above 160 percent.

The whipsaw price action is underpinned by annualized 30-day volatility of roughly 213 percent — a level that leaves the stock vulnerable to every piece of news, whether from the factory floor or a courtroom.

A $50 Million Lumilens Order Comes With Strings Attached

The clearest counterweight to the legal noise is the May supply and development agreement with Lumilens. The partnership focuses on integrating photonics at the wafer level for AI infrastructure, with Lumilens placing an initial purchase order worth $50 million for POET’s EOI-based optical engines. Both sides see the potential for cumulative purchases exceeding $500 million over five years.

Yet the market has been quick to note that the order is conditional. POET must clear hurdles in development, module qualification, and manufacturing ramp before revenue starts flowing. The new $400 million capital raise — a single institutional investor took shares and warrants in May at roughly $21 apiece — is meant to fund precisely that scale-up. The company plans to roughly tenfold its wafer production and optical-engine assembly capacity by 2027, with expanded lab space in Singapore and 20,000 square feet of assembly floor in Malaysia already in place.

The financing removes any near-term liquidity worry — the balance sheet is debt-free and the current ratio stands above 35 — but it raises the bar for delivery. With cash in the bank, the question shifts from “can they afford to build?” to “can they build on time and to spec?”

Three Lawsuits and a June 29 Deadline

While the operational side is moving forward, the legal front is heating up. Three separate class-action complaints have been filed in U.S. federal court, led by firms including Bronstein Gewirtz & Grossman, DJS Law Group, Gross Law Firm, and Rosen Law Firm. The lawsuits make two core allegations. The first is that POET downplayed the risk that it could be classified as a Passive Foreign Investment Company (PFIC), a designation that would carry significant tax penalties for U.S. shareholders. The second, more damaging charge centres on the Mika interview, which the shareholders claim violated a non-disclosure agreement and directly led to Celestial AI pulling its business. POET has not yet responded formally to the complaints.

A key date is June 29, the deadline for investors to apply to become lead plaintiff. Anyone who bought shares between April 1 and April 27, 2026 — the class period — can potentially participate in any eventual settlement without taking active steps.

The operational numbers offer little cushion for the narrative. First-quarter 2026 revenue was just $503,000, a tripling from a year earlier but still negligible for a company valued in the billions. The net loss came in at $12.3 million, while the return on equity was roughly minus 48 percent and operating cash flow remains negative.

New COO, New Focus

Against that backdrop, the appointment of Sandeep Kumar as chief operating officer in May is a deliberate signal. Kumar brings deep experience in semiconductor manufacturing — from supply chain and process engineering to quality assurance and test infrastructure. He reports directly to the CEO, and his mandate is clear: shift POET from lab-scale development to repeatable, high-volume production.

The Lumilens deal is the most tangible proof point that the market still believes in POET’s technology. But delivering on that order, keeping legal distractions contained, and proving that the customer loss to Marvell/Celestial AI was an isolated incident will determine whether the stock can reclaim its highs. The next few months will be less about new partnership announcements and more about the nuts and bolts of module qualification, initial shipments, and disciplined deployment of the $400 million war chest. Every piece of concrete operational news — a qualified module, a first delivery — could move the stock far more than any press release.