$POET
MonitorInvestment Thesis
POET packages SIVE lasers into optical interposers for Marvell Celestial — but Marvell cancelled purchase orders after POET CFO violated the NDA. Small positions held. The packaging layer is easier to vertically integrate away than laser IP, making POET the most likely to be designed out long-term. $420M cash provides downside buffer.
Catalysts
- $420M cash provides downside floor
- New smaller customers diversifying Marvell concentration risk
Risks
- MRVL cancelled purchase orders — primary bull case is broken
- CFO NDA violation destroyed customer trust
- Packaging is easier to design out than laser IP — structural long-term risk
- Single customer concentration was always the thesis risk
From the Feed (3 signals)
It's highly nuanced, and I'll explain why it's not late, but late to some: Photonics is the newest supercycle (maybe H1 into H2 2025 was the start). Then there's many different architectural changes in each supercycle: $LITE, $COHR, Innolight, $AXTI led the first. $AAOI, $JBL types benefit immensely as the transitional bridge (1.6T pluggable). $SIVE, Celestial, Ayar, $POET are future gens (CPO). VisEra, QD Laser, $ALMU are likely future gens (quantum dot). What I'm trying to do is point regular retail investors into the direction of new gold mines for free. Before institutions figure out sooner or later.
All the hyperscalers $SIVE likely ends up in 2027-2028 is staggering at a $900m MC. Markets don't understand what's coming. From speculative mapping: SIVE → POET → MRVL → AMZN/MSFT/GOOGL. SIVE → JBL 1.6T → META/NVDA. SIVE → Ayar → AlChip/GUC → AMZN/AMD. SIVE → O-Net ELS → Asian hyperscalers (Tencent/Alibaba/ByteDance). SIVE → AAPL Silicon Photonics (50M units/yr). Alpha comes from future revenue proportional to demand from every Western/Asian hyperscaler for CPO/1.6T in 2027, 2028, 2029, and onward.
$MRVL cancelled $POET purchase orders after the CFO went out and violated NDA when getting angry. Ouch to Poet, down -46%, this is why I don't like companies with single customer concentration risk. On the bright side for $POET holders they do have $420m cash buffering downside risk and a few other customers (though Marvell was basically the entire Poet bull case story). It does look like Marvell delayed their own timelines as well by doing this.