POET Technologies Taps Silicon Labs Veteran to Drive 10x Production Scale-Up as $400M Capital Raise Rolls Out

The photon-chip developer closed a $400M direct offering at a premium but saw shares drop over 20%, as it pursues a manufacturing ramp while facing dilution fears and legal challenges.

The optics around POET Technologies have rarely been this tangled. The photon-chip developer closed a $400 million direct offering to a single institutional investor on Monday — and promptly watched its stock shed more than 20% of its value. That conflicting signal captures the tension at the heart of the story: a company with a bold expansion plan, a freshly loaded balance sheet, but also a slate of legal headaches and a shareholder base that appears deeply divided.

Big money is already picking sides. MMCAP International, the buyer of the newly issued shares and warrants, reduced its existing stake during the first quarter. Citadel, by contrast, piled in, increasing its position over the same period. The divergence underscores the uncertainty surrounding POET’s ability to turn its technology into commercial-scale production.

The offering itself was structured at a premium to recent trading. MMCAP purchased roughly 19 million units at $21 each, a price that included warrants exercisable at $26.25 over three years. The stock, which had surged from $7.11 to $20.81 earlier this month, tumbled sharply on the news. By Monday’s close it had fallen to $14.01, well below the placement price. Another report put the initial drop at 22%, with a closing print of $15.97. In either case, the market’s message was clear: dilution fears are real, even when the cash is desperately needed.

That cash — net proceeds of about $375 million — is earmarked for a dramatic ramp in manufacturing. CEO Suresh Venkatesan has set a target of roughly ten times current production capacity by 2027. The plan involves tripling laboratory space in Singapore, building a large assembly hall in Malaysia, and scaling the output of optical engines used in 800G, 1.6T and faster data links for AI clusters and data centers. Additional funds will go toward potential acquisitions, expanded R&D, and new light-source modules for chip-to-server connections.

To lead that operational push, POET has hired Sandeep Kumar as Chief Operating Officer. Kumar spent 18 years at Silicon Labs, most recently as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations. His mandate is to transform the company’s wafer and optical engine assembly into a volume production machine, with a particular focus on the Malaysian facility.

The management shake-up continues in the finance department. CFO Thomas Mika, who has served for a decade, plans to retire later this year. The board has begun the search for his replacement.

POET is also rewriting its corporate DNA. The board supports a plan to redomicile the company to the United States, a move that would eliminate the “passive foreign investment company” (PFIC) designation that has triggered tax headaches for U.S. investors. That issue had already spawned securities lawsuits earlier this spring. A shareholder vote on the relocation is scheduled for June 26, 2026. If approved, POET would no longer be classified as a foreign corporation.

Litigation risks, however, have not disappeared. A group of shareholders is moving toward a class action, alleging incorrect statements regarding the company’s tax status and undisclosed contract cancellations. Investors who wish to join the suit have until June 29, 2026 to do so — just three days after the relocation vote.

In the meantime, short-term traders are gaining a new tool. Defiance ETFs has launched a 2x leveraged single-stock ETF on POET, a product that amplifies daily price moves. The fund could attract tactical capital, but it also risks magnifying the wild swings that have already defined recent sessions.

POET enters the next few weeks navigating a tight intersection of events: the shareholder vote on the U.S. move, the search for a new CFO, the operational scale-up with fresh capital, and the pending class-action deadline. For a company that posted a net loss of roughly $43 million in the final quarter of 2025, the stakes could hardly be higher.