POET Technologies Inc. (PTK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, shareholders and guests. I'd like to welcome you all to the 2021 Virtual Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders of POET Technologies, Inc. My name is Kevin Barnes. I'm the VP of Finance and Treasurer of the company. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has forced us to hold the meeting in this virtual format, but it's certainly good that we can all still have an opportunity to interact. I trust that you have all been keeping safe and well under the circumstances. Now as noted from your information circular, today's meeting is conducted virtually via the Lumi platform, which will allow only registered shareholders to participate in voting. Please note, if you have already voted, you do not need to vote on the resolutions as they are being read. The meeting today will be about 2 hours long, where we will first handle the formal part of the meeting chaired by Peter Charbonneau, the Director and Chair of the Corporate Governance and Nominating Committee. It will be followed by presentations by our most 3 -- our 3 most senior executives, then it will be wrapped up with a Q&A session. So with us today, we have certain members of the organization that has been represented. We have the CFO of the company, Tom Mika. We have the CEO, Suresh Venkatesan. We have Vivek Rajgarhia. We have myself, Kevin Barnes, Peter Charbonneau, Mohan Warrior, Jean-Louis Malinge and Glen Riley. The agenda for the formal part of the meeting will cover certain topics. And the topics to be addressed at the meeting will be first, review -- to receive the audited consolidated financial statements of the company for the financial year and to review the auditor's report and to address the unaudited consolidated financial statements for June 30, 2021. We'll be electing 6 directors to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are elected. We will appoint Marcum LLP as the auditors of the company and to authorize the directors to fix their remuneration. And we will pass an ordinary resolution approving the amendments of the company's stock option plan and approving the 2021 plan, as amended. Insiders of the company will be abstaining from this vote. And last but not least, we will consider, and if deemed appropriate, approve a special resolution substantially in the form set forth in the circular to amend the outstanding shares of the organization [ in the ] reorganization fashion for a range of 2 to 10 pre-consolidation shares, and we'll authorize the directors of the company to deem the final consolidation ratio through within such range. At this point, I'd like to turn the meeting over to our Lead Director and Chair of the Corporate Governance and Nominating Committee, Charbonneau, to chair the formal part of the meeting. Peter?

As noted in the Notice of Meeting and company management information circular, due to the current COVID crisis, as part of the company's social responsibility and preparedness plans in response to COVID-19, this year's annual general and special meeting is available online using the Lumi meeting platform, which allows registered shareholders or their proxy holders to vote in real time as well as submit questions and comments to be read and addressed at the meeting. If you have a question or comment, please submit it through the Lumi meeting platform by clicking on the messaging icon. I will now ask Thomas Mika, the Secretary of the company, to act as Secretary of this meeting. I wish to point out that only shareholders of the company or their appointee by proxy are allowed to move and second the adoption of resolutions and to vote at this meeting. To this end, shareholders who are in attendance or their proxyholders have been provided with an opportunity to electronically vote or against or withholding vote, where applicable. The voting platform is now open for voting on all resolutions should any shareholder choose to change his or her vote. The voting platform will allow you to choose to vote on each resolution immediately or wait until conclusion of discussion on each resolution prior to casting your vote. If you have already voted, you do not need to do so again. There will be an opportunity to ask questions on each resolution under consideration. Once discussion on all items of business has concluded, I will give you a minute to enter your votes and then declare voting closed at the end when all formal business items have been discussed and voted on. There are several routine matters that must be dealt with at this meeting. In order to expedite these and leave more time for presentations and questions after the formal meeting, I have arranged for certain persons to make and second formal motions, and we'll call on these persons at the appropriate time. The first item of business will be the appointment of a scrutineer to report on the shareholders present in person and the number of shares represented in person and by proxy at the meeting or any adjournment thereof.

Mr. Chairman, I move that Billy Cho of Computershare Investor Services, Inc. be hereby appointed scrutineer to report on the shareholders present in person and by proxy. The number of shares represented in person and the number of shares represented by proxies at the meeting and at any adjournment or adjournments thereof and to compute the votes on any poll taken at this meeting and at any adjournment or adjournments hereof and to report thereon to the Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Mike, for that motion and seconding. Are there any questions or comments? Hearing and receiving none. By the authority granted to me as Chairman, I declare the motion carried. The next item is the notice of meeting. In accordance with the notice and access rules under National Instrument 54-101, the company has sent its proxy-related materials to shareholders using the notice and access method. As such, shareholders received a proxy form and/or voting instruction form in paper format. The notice of meeting and the management information circular may be accessed or downloaded from the company's website or from SEDAR. The proof of mailing of the proxy material has been filed with me by the Secretary of the company. I direct that a copy of such proof of mailing be annexed to the minutes of the meeting as a schedule. I will now ask someone to move and someone to second the adoption of the resolution dispense with the meeting of the minutes. The floor recognized Kevin Barnes.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the reading of the notice of this meeting be dispensed.

And I recognize Mr. Tom Mika.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Are there any questions or comments? Hearing or receiving none. By the authority granted to me as Chairman, I declare the motion carried. The next item on our agenda is the scrutineer's report. The scrutineer has provided me with a preliminary report on shareholder attendance represented at this meeting. The scrutineer reports that there are present at the meeting in person or by proxy 517 shareholders holding 108,725,063 common shares, which represents 30.90% of the total issued and outstanding shares available to vote. Accordingly, I declare that the requisite quorum of shareholders is present, and that the meeting is duly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business. I direct that the scrutineer's final report on the attendance be annexed to the minutes of the meeting. The next item is the disruption of proxies. I think I'll call upon the secretary to file with the company's records, a list of shareholders of the company showing the respective holdings of shares in the capital stock of the company and the original proxies deposited at the meeting. I will now ask someone to move and someone to second the adoption of a resolution respecting the disruption of proxies. And the Chair recognizes Mr. Mike White.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the proxies forwarded by shareholders for use at this annual meeting of shareholders of the company be retained with the records of the company for a period of 6 months from the date hereof and that they be destroyed thereafter.

The Chair recognizes Mr. Kevin Barnes.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Thank you, Mr. White and Mr. Barnes. Are there any questions or comments? Hearing none. By the authority granted to me as Chairman, I declare the motion carried. The next item is the minutes of the previous meeting. The last meeting of the shareholders of the company was a special meeting held on February 19, 2021. And the minutes of such meetings were filed in the minute book and are available for inspection. I will now ask I someone to move and someone to second the adoption of a resolution dispensing with the reading of the minutes, and that the minutes be taken as read and verified as correct. The chair recognizes Mr. Bill White. Mr. White?

Mr. Chairman, it's Mike White here. Perhaps there's some difficulty with his audio. I suggest, perhaps Kevin Barnes be recognized [indiscernible].

The floor recognizes...

Mr. Chairman, I move that the reading of the minutes of the last meeting of shareholders be dispensed with, and the minutes be taken as read and verified as correct.

Now the floor recognizes Mr. Mike White.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Thank you, Mr. White and Mr. Barnes. Are there any questions or comments? Hearing none. By the authority granted to me as Chairman, I declare the motion carried. So the next item on our agenda is the financial statements and auditor's report. I now present to the meeting the amended audited consolidated financial statements of the company for the year ended December 31, 2020, together with the auditor's report as well as the unaudited consolidated financial statements for the 6 months ending June 30, 2021. Copies of such documents were filed on SEDAR posted on the company's website and mailed to those shareholders who had requested a copy. I will now ask someone to move and someone to second the adoption of resolution dispensing with the reading of the auditor's report. The floor recognize, Mr. Kevin Barnes.

Mr. Chairman, that the reading of the auditor's report be dispensed with.

And the floor recognize Mr. Tom Mika.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Barnes and Mr. Mika. Are there any questions or comments? Hearing none. By the authority granted to me as Chairman, I declare that the motion is carried. The next item on our agenda is the election of directors. It is now -- in order to proceed with the election of directors and to elect 6 directors to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed. I now declare that the meeting open for nominations. The floor recognizes Mr. Mike White.

Mr. Chairman, I nominate Suresh Venkatesan; Mohandas Warrior; Glen Riley; Jean-Louis Malinge; Peter Charbonneau; and Chris Tsiofas, as Directors of the company to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed.

Thank you, Mr. White. The person nominated under management's nominees for reelection and are the current directors of the company as was stated in the information circular delivered to shareholders. The company bylaws provide that indication to any other applicable requirements for a nomination to be made by a nominating shareholder, the nominating shareholder must have given timely notice thereof in proper written form to the Corporate Secretary of the corporation at the principal executive offices of the corporation not less than 30 days prior to the date of the Annual Meeting of Shareholders. No nominations were received from nominating shareholders. Six persons have been nominated to fill the 6 directors position. Since no notices of further nominations have been received by the company, and since the votes to date have been overwhelmingly in favor of the election of all of the Directors, I would now ask someone to move and someone to second the adoption of a resolution approving the election of 7 nominees and directing me, the Chairman of this meeting, to cast a single ballot for such election. So the floor recognizes Mr. Bill White.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the election of the 6 nominees be approved, and that the Chairman be directed to cast a single ballot for the election of the 6 nominees as directors of the company for the ensuing year to hold office until the next annual meeting or until their successors are elected or appointed.

Thank you, Bill. The floor recognizes Mr. Kevin Barnes.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Are there any questions or comments? If you choose to cast a vote on this resolution, please do so now. If you have already voted, you do not need to do so again. And I'll pause here for a few moments to allow people to vote if they so desire. [Voting]

I believe that should be sufficient time. I declare those nominated to have been duly elected as directors of the company to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed. Next item on our agenda is the appointment of auditors and the authorization of the directors to fix the remuneration of such auditors. I'll now ask someone to move and second the adoption of a resolution appointing auditors for the current year and authorizing the directors to fix their remuneration of such auditors. The floor recognizes Mr. Kevin Barnes.

Mr. Chairman, I move that Marcum LLP be appointed auditors of the company to hold office until the close of the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders, and that the Directors of the company be authorized to fix the remuneration to be paid to the auditors.

Thank you, Kevin. And the floor recognizes Mr. Tom Mika.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Thank you, Tom. Are there any questions or comments? Moving on. If you choose to cast a vote on this resolution, please do so now. If you have already voted, you do not need to do so again. And again, I'll pause here for a moment to allow people to vote if they choose to do so. [Voting]

I presume that that's sufficient time for people to vote. I declare that Marcum LLP has been duly appointed auditors of the company to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders, and that the directors have been duly authorized to fix their remuneration. Next item is the increase in the number of stock options available for grant under the company's stock option plan. On August 31, 2021, the Directors resolved to increase the fixed number of shares reserved for issuance under the company's stock option plan to such number equal to 20% of the issued and outstanding shares of the company on the day prior to the meeting, subject to shareholder and the TSX Venture Exchange approval to be known as the 2021 plan. All other terms and conditions remain unchanged. As of October 6, 2021, there were 354,525,915 shares of the company issued and outstanding. If approved by the shareholders, the fixed number issuable under the plan will increase from 58,538,554 to 70,709,183, that number being 20% of the issued and outstanding common shares of the company at the close of business yesterday, October 6, 2021. To be effective, the company must obtain approval of the simple majority of the shareholders at the meeting to increase the number of options, but excluding insiders, their associates and any eligible participant who are classified as the disinterested shareholders with respect to the adoption of the 2021 plan. For the purposes hereof, an insider is a director or senior officer of the company, a director or senior officer of a company that is itself an insider or a subsidiary of the company or a person who control directly or indirectly through beneficial ownership or a combination thereof over the securities of the company extends to securities carrying more than 10% of the voting rights attached to all companies' outstanding vote of securities. So the floor now recognizes Mr. Bill White.

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment of the company's stock option plan, pursuant to which the Board of Directors may from time to time grant stock options to directors, officers, employees and consultants of the company and its subsidiaries as follows: to increase the number of common shares of the company reserved for issuance under the plan to fix number from 58,538,554 to 70,905,183. That number being 20% of the issued and outstanding common shares of the company at the close of business on October 6, 2021. And with all interested parties abstaining from voting to approve the adoption of the 2021 plan, incorporating the aforesaid amendment providing for the grant of the increased number of options under the plan and under all other previously established share compensation arrangements.

Thank you, Bill. The floor will now recognize Mr. Mike White.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Thank you, Mike. Are there any questions or comments? So if you choose to cast the vote on this resolution, please do so now. If you have already voted, you do not need to do so again. And again, I'll pause here for a few moments to allow people a chance to vote if they so desire. [Voting]

I believe that sufficient time to allow people to vote. I declare that stock option plan has been amended to increase the number of common shares reserved for issuance under the plan from 58,538,554 to 70,905,183. That number being 20% of the issued and outstanding common shares of the company at the close of business on October 6, 2021. I also declare the adoption of the 2021 plan. So the next item on our agenda is the consolidation of issued and outstanding securities. The Board of Directors of POET Technologies, after consultation with its legal and financial advisers, unanimously approved the proposed consolidation of the issued and outstanding securities of the company as described in the Management Information Circular that was mailed to the shareholders in connection with this meeting. The Board of Directors unanimously recommends that shareholders vote for consolidation -- for the consolidation resolution. In order to be effective, the consolidation resolution must be approved by the affirmative vote of not less than 66, 2/3% of the votes by shareholders cast at the meeting in respect of such resolution. Unless the shareholder directs that his or her common shares are to be voted against the consolidated resolution, the persons named in the enclosed form of proxy intend to vote for the consolidation. In the event shareholders' approval has not obtained, the consolidation will not occur. Notwithstanding the approval of the consolidation resolution by the applicable margin, the Board of Directors reserve the right not to implement the consolidation. I will now ask someone to move and someone to second the adoption of the special resolution to consolidate the issued and outstanding securities of POET Technologies, Inc., as described in the management information circular. The floor recognizes Mr. Kevin Barnes.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the consolidation of the issued and outstanding securities of POET Technologies, Inc., as set out in the management information circular mailed to shareholders in connection with this meeting, approving the consolidation of the issued and outstanding securities to be adopted. For greater certainty, I move that POET Technologies, Inc. be authorized to amend this articles so that they issued and outstanding common shares in the capital of the company are consolidated on the basis of 1 post-consolidation common share for a number of pre-consolidated common shares to be determined within a range of between 2 and 10 pre-consolidated common shares. And the Board of Directors of the company be hereby authorized to determine the final consolidation ratio within such a range. Notwithstanding the passing of this resolution by the shareholders of the company, the Board of Directors is hereby authorized and empowered without further notice to or approval of the shareholders not to proceed with the consolidation or to revoke this resolution at any time prior to the consolidation becoming effective without further approval of the shareholders. Any director or officer of the company is hereby authorized and directed acting for in the name of and on behalf of the company to execute or cause to be executed under the seal of the company or otherwise and to deliver or to cause to be delivered all such documents, agreements and instruments and to do or to cause to be done all such other acts and things as such person determines to be necessary or desirable or required by any regulatory authority in order to carry out the intent of this resolution and the matters authorized hereby such determination to be conclusively evidenced by the execution and delivery of such document, agreement or instrument or the doing of any such act or thing.

Thank you, Kevin. The floor recognizes Mr. Bill White.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Thank you, Bill. If you choose to cast a ballot on this resolution, please do so now. If you have already voted, you do not need to do so again. I'll now pause for a moment while people have an opportunity to vote. [Voting]

I declare that the company is hereby authorized to amend its articles so that the issued and outstanding common shares in the capital of the company are consolidated on the basis of 1 post-consolidated common share for a number of pre-consolidation common shares to be determined within a range between 2 and 10 pre-consolidation common shares, and the Board of Directors of the company be hereby authorized to determine the final consolidation ratio within such range. So that brings us to the end of our agenda. Voting is now closed on all items of business as have been scheduled. Preliminary results indicated that all items of business have passed. The final results will be posted on SEDAR within the next 48 hours. The formal business of the meeting has now been concluded. If there is no further business, our Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Suresh Venkatesan; and our President and General Manager, Vivek Rajgarhia; and our Chief Financial Officer, Thomas Mika, will be providing updates on the affairs and business of the company. And we will be pleased to answer any questions from shareholders. Is there any further business? The floor recognizes Mr. Mike White.

Mr. Chairman, I move the meeting be terminated.

Thank you, Mike. The floor recognizes Mr. Thomas Mika.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Thank you, Tom. Are there any other questions or comments? I declare this meeting to be terminated. Dr. Suresh Venkatesan will now address the shareholders with a presentation, followed by a question-and-answer period. If you have a question or comment, please submit it through the Lumi meeting platform by clicking on the Messaging icon. Please reserve all your questions until the conclusion of the presentation. Suresh, I'll pass.

Thank you, Peter. Good afternoon, good evening, good morning, everybody, depending on where in the world you are. But before I get started, let me -- I'm going to try to -- can you pass control of the slides to me, please. We'll spend the next few minutes giving you a brief update on the state of the business. I will start with an introduction and then turn it over to both Vivek and Tom to comment as well, and we'll open the floor up for questions. Next slide, please. I'm sorry, we're having some technical issues. Next slide, please. Yes. So as we are focused on what we're trying to do in terms of delivering product to customers, it's often good to step back and reassess why we're here, what our vision is and work on our strategy to achieve said vision and mission. So we -- our vision is to be a global leader in integrated photonic solutions using chip scale or wafer scale assembly technology. We do want to deploy broadly our optical interposer technology platform. I think over time, we have emphasized the value and benefit of using a platform technology, and we are an integration platform play that enables a seamless integration of electronics and photonics. That continues to be our vision. It was why I joined the company back almost 5 years ago. And I believe, at this point, we have firmly established ourselves as a key player to reckon with in the space by deploying our technology and by incorporating it into products that are now valued and coveted by the market in general. So a year ago, we talked about products. And I think, overwhelmingly, as we move forward from here, we will be talking about customers and the business end of kind of what we need to do in terms of converting this process of technology development into commercial success. If you go to the next slide. So we had, earlier this year, put out a 6-point strategy of how we intend to operate our business in terms of achieving our vision and mission. The first 2 have to do with our nuts and bolts, our fundamental business, validating the platform, deploying it into a set of products, proliferating those products into the market and selling devices and designs based on these products, primarily focused in the data communications space. We expect to do this via POET as well as through our joint venture, Super Photonics. The joint venture was set up to deliver maximum cash flow back to its parent. It was set up in China because, as you will hear later, a good portion of module manufacturing in the optical space is in China, as where the biggest demand is for some of the products. And we're well established in that space to exploit the localization imperative that is in China. So Super Photonics, [ POET's engine ], as part of a strategy to exploit that localization and imperative and be able to effectively provide local solutions into the Chinese market. Following up on that is an evaluation and an assessment of synergistic potential acquisitions or inorganic growth opportunities that solidify our value proposition as well as provide differentiation and customer access. Thereafter, we'll be looking at point 4 and 5 applications in new vertical markets, be it point of use health care or geolocation type applications, LiDAR, et cetera, and adjacent markets in telecommunications, these are 5G and Oracle herent technologies as well as kind of moving towards what is broadly called the space of co-packaged optics that applies not only to communications, but also to computing in terms of optical neural nets, et cetera. And then finally, as the technology gets hold, we would explore opportunistically technology licensing models, especially in areas that are noncompetitive to POET or areas that we don't intend to participate in. So we had kind of laid out the strategy, and we've been executing our plan. We have a strategy committee inside of the company, and we review the plan and progress associated with the strategy on a quarterly basis. But these are the fundamental pillars of our strategy that support the vision and mission that I had presented in the earlier slide. If you move to the next slide, please. So for its commercialization road map. And again, in consistent with the strategy that we've talked about, our immediate focus this year and into next year is to deploy our solutions in the datacom market. I've said this before many times, we are a new technology platform. And while technology sounds great, it has 0 value unless it's incorporated into products and incorporated into products that are coveted by the market. And so we need to do that. We need to establish a beachhead position in certain markets with our technology before looking to proliferate. And so our focus has been let's establish that beachhead in data communications, where there is a pain point to solve and it is a high-volume segment of the market. So that's what we're doing. We've kind of been doing that in 2021 successfully. We would see progress in that in 2022. And we are already, based on some of the discussions we've had with folks in China during the CIOE and others, looking at the next click from there, which is 400, 800 gig as well as certain co-package optics applications. And so there will be -- while there is a team focused on new product introduction, customer access, acquisition, et cetera, there will be a team focused on these next-generation opportunities, and we will be migrating towards that starting next year and then out from there. And finally, we are already looking at specific segments in alternate verticals, health care, autonomous vehicles, et cetera and computing, of course, that come later in terms of how the revenue builds up into the company and how the customer design wins work. But those are seeds that are being sow now, but you will hear us primarily talking about the first 2 aspects of what we present on the slide over the course of this next year. Go to the next slide, please. A couple of years ago at the AGM, we talked primarily about the technology. What is the technology? What has the technology been? What is the validation? That was the process that we started in 2017 as we pivoted off of gallium arsenide towards the optical interposer. And really, much of our presentations over the course of that period of time had to do with the technology and the potential and the fact that customers needed to validate aspects of the technology, et cetera. A year ago, we have talked about the fact that the development of the technology and its concept and testing has been completed, and we were migrating into a product design or a product development phase. And this year and going into next, we're kind of in this -- the business end of this process, which is introducing the product to manufacturing and then market entry and commercialization as it relates to customer acquisition, customer access and broad deployment. So that is kind of the theme, if you will, for 2021 into 2022. That's why I have the words new product innovation. Innovation in the sense, we're introducing products that the market cares about, that has a differentiator, that has a plus 1 factor. It's not a me too. And that's where the innovation moniker in this process comes about. But we're now in that phase. And Vivek will give you a lot more color about what that means specifically in terms of what we're doing. Next slide, please. So 2021, our key accomplishments. In Q1 of this year, we started our joint venture operations. We also put out pre-alpha product prototypes for the 100 gig, 200 gig CWDM4 optical engines and light bars. And light bars were primarily as remote lasers for the 400-gig applications. We also incorporated POET's engine, recruited a leadership team, and that team has now grown. We've just recently added a Director of Marketing in that team that is chartered with basically increasing our outreach and access from a customer perspective. In quarter 2 of this year, it's kind of our first set of coming out, if you will, with live product demonstrations of the OFC in 2021 that was done virtually. And it did help accelerate certain customer engagements and traction and really put a lot more rigor into the design win process and what it takes to actually convert a potential opportunity and a discussion into a real contract. We also established a strategic partnership for 400-gig optical engines using silicon photonics-based modulators. In quarter 3 this year, we did 6 live demos of our products, including the 100 gig, the 200-gig received, a 400-gig pre-alpha demonstration in terms of what our solution is going to be next year in that 400 gig space as well as a couple of light bar solutions for remote lasing applications. We increased customer commitments and engagements and also delivered the alpha samples, which were -- which was a little late relative to what we had expected. But nevertheless, we did complete delivery of those samples to the first set of customers in quarter 3, which, of course, also led to certain design wins that we subsequently announced and that Vivek will talk about. In quarter 4, we -- based on the results that we have seen from the alphas that we've been working on since about June of this year, there are certain tweaks that need to be made to the design for manufacturability and for volume production. So we've incorporated those. And they are currently going through the foundry process through SilTerra, and we would expect that in Q4 and definitely by the end of the year, we would start deploying betas. So in some cases, customers will receive betas directly. In other cases, they would go step from alpha to beta. And we would also be providing the alpha samples of our 400-gig receivers first. We showed them the transmitter at the CIOE. We'll follow it up with the receiver and then finally, the full TxRx engine as we get into 2022. I think some -- a few words at this point. I think you can compare what we've done this year to what I said we would do. And of course, there are some puts and takes and changes. So obviously, development in a company like ours is a dynamic process. We react to what we are seeing on a regular basis, but largely I feel like we've tacked on the right direction and largely met the goals and milestones that we had for the company. And we continue to make progress along the lines and the strategy that we've laid out for ourselves. A few things on the climate that we're operating in. We continue to have significant challenges and face significant challenges as a company as a consequence of the pandemic. Outside of the proliferation of the delta in our Asian spots that we operate from, which prevents any travel to these regions, there have been periodic shutdowns that we have had to work through and we had to work around. We do have, obviously, shortage of almost everything, right, in the world today, but primarily in semiconductors, and we continue to face that with our foundry. We would expect that, that goes through 2022. We've reserved some capacity that allows us to continue to have continuity in terms of supply. But cycle times are longer, lead times are more challenging, and we really have to be smart about how we work ourselves through this. Shipping, that used to take a day or 2, now takes a week or more. And every time there is an issue with the pandemic that comes up, shipping is disrupted again. So these are challenges that we have faced through this year. So if you put all of that in perspective, I commend my team. I commend everybody on the POET staff to that -- for the sacrifices and the work they have put in to be able to get us to a point where we're fundamentally on track in terms of our schedules. We have not slipped our beta. Beta is still on track. Production is still on track. We did have hiccups in alpha, where things delayed by a couple of months. But largely, we've maintained our momentum, and that's a testimony to the team. We work together, make sacrifices as needed. I mean, we've spent 3 weeks in quarantine in China because it was important for him to go there. I mean that was a huge sacrifice, and it is what we need to do as a business. Of course, as the culture in Asian companies is -- it's important to have direct contact. You can't do these business deals over Zoom or by telephone call. And I do thank Vivek for his sacrifices in that manner and going out there and working with the team and working with the customers to get both their engagements as well as their interest and commitments that we're talking about here. So the accomplishments, I believe, are fantastic for this year. I think we're on track to have a really good next year as well. And I do want to thank the team. And I think it's important that we put all of these accomplishments in perspective under the backdrop of the pandemic that we're working through and continue to work through during the course of this -- even the next year. So with that, I think I will turn it over to Vivek. So operator, if you could move to the next slide and also pass control onto Vivek please.

Thank you, Suresh. I think I should have control, but -- okay. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone, and it's a pleasure to be with you, even though we have to do it virtually this year. But it's great to be able to communicate and talk to you directly. So as Suresh mentioned, I will cover the business portion status of where we are, what we are doing. So the first slide -- okay. So Suresh mentioned about the status where we are. I just want to cover our journey from technology development to commercialization. It can be described in 3 phases: product development -- I mean platform development, optical engine design and development and then new product introduction. So in terms of product development, we have developed and commercialized, I would say, the key building blocks of our platform, the optical interposer in terms of developing the CMOS compatible waveguides, flip chip and passive integration of lasers, both high-speed DMLs as well as high-power CW lasers, each having its own significance in the applications and also the vertical mirrors, which are needed for integrating the photo detectors as well as for the wafer-level testing. POET will continue to work on increasing the capability and features of this platform, as Suresh mentioned, for readiness of next-generation applications whether it be external cavity gratings, putting micro optics, assembly and whatnot. Moving on to optical engine design and development. Our teams around the world in Singapore, Allentown, Shenzhen have worked collaboratively to design and develop the products that you have seen and we will show on our product road map. This also includes making evaluation boards. So you see on the bottom of that middle block, there are these evaluation boards that have to be designed so our customers can effectively evaluate our engines and also use it as reference design to help them design their boards and circuits that can effectively and efficiently use our optical engines. And then moving on to new product introductions. This essentially has includes 3 aspects: One is customer engagement and design wins, product qualification and manufacturing and manufacturing optimization. Our team in Super Photonics really does a big part of this heavy lifting of the new product introduction in guidance -- and guided by POET's team. So this further emphasizes the importance of our joint venture, Super Photonics, and our partner, SAIC, that is providing significant resources financially as well as providing world-class facilities, and we are able to hire and we have a highly experienced and capable team there to do this process. Our product road map can be categorized into 3 buckets. One is the 100G, 200G CWDM and LR4 engines, which is based on our high-speed DML lasers. Our 400G solutions which require high-power CW lasers and silicon photonic modulators, and live bar solutions, which are CW light sources which serve as external light sources for next-generation applications such as 800G and co-packaged optics. So on 100G, 200G CWDM4, we are moving from alpha to beta and then we'll be going into production next year. 100G LR4 solutions, we have seen a great traction and customer pull. POET is uniquely positioned here to take advantage of this market to provide high-performance and integrated solutions, and we are doing that with coming out with alpha in the next few months and then moving -- and we will be able to piggyback of 100G CWDM4 solutions to go into production next year. 200G CWDM will follow. On 400G solutions, the 2 main items aspects that we had to identify was the CW laser, which we have been working on and have been able to identify partners that can supply CW lasers that is compatible to our interposer platform. We've been involved in co-designing those for a couple of years. And the main item now was to identify a suitable silicon photonics modulator and a partner that we could collaborate with. So we did that, and we announced and did a live demonstration at CIOE last month for that. And then on the custom light bar solutions, we have 3 flavors of it that also we demonstrated at CIOE. One is they're all having 4 lasers as inputs. We had 1 flavor with an output on 1 fiber, 1 with 2 fibers and then 1 as a next-generation solution doing a demonstration of a multi-core fiber, which has 4 modes in 1 fiber, where 4 channels of light can travel independently in 1 fiber. We participated in the major optical communications event and conference in China last month at CIOE and ICCSZ. As Suresh mentioned, we did 6 live product demonstrations. In my experience, even at large companies doing more than a couple, is really heavy lifting in an exhibition and conference. Our team did a remarkable job in really doing live -- 6 live product demonstrations, and it was a true collaboration between all the sites internationally. This was attended by almost all companies playing in the optical space with C-level leadership, technology leaders attending and listening and viewing our presentations and demonstrations; optics companies going from all the way from chip level to module, to system and to data center and operator companies attending this conference; and generating a lot of customer interest commitment. At this point, we can say everyone dealing with optics in China knows about POET, knows about what we are doing. The last few years of significant effort that has been done by the team at POET is now coming to fruition. And some of it, we are able to share with you. Just this week, we announced a significant design win and purchase order from a leading systems company. A week before that, our participation at CIOE, making a huge impact in the Chinese ecosystem -- optical ecosystem and also being able to announce a customer design win with Fibertop. And then the 400G solution doing a live demo and announcing our partnership with the silicon photonics modulator solution provider, SiLUX Technologies was done. As we are moving into commercializing our product and putting it into customers' hands, getting design wins and revenue, our design win opportunity funnel is now, I believe, well filled as we continue to identify new opportunities. We have over 35 when I say targeted, means customers that could be interested. We are talking to them. We are talking to over 20 customers in our opportunities in active discussion. Many of them have requested our samples for evaluation and design win. 6 projects are in the stage of finalizing. So we are in the stage where customers are interested. We know we can provide a solution, just tying up ends where we can actually launch that project. And 4 opportunities are already committed, and we are in an active development to provide those to the customer and for customers to use and design and then use those. So how do we further -- as we continue our focus on the road map, we don't want to divert from that. However, we are looking at how to strategically grow the company as well as increase the shareholder value. So organically as well as inorganically. So we are looking at entering, as Suresh mentioned, strategically entering new vertical market segments, whether it be health care or sensing like LiDAR and IoT or other applications and also expanding that through inorganic opportunities that are synergistic to POET in terms of technology or product. On the right most side, you will see a quotation, a comment that was made by Light Counting, a leading market research company in the optical space that at CIOE last -- about 2 weeks ago presented and said that the Chinese vendors start to dominate the transceiver market in 2016 as Japanese and U.S.-based suppliers exit. So for last 5 years, this China has become basically the hub of supplying optical transceivers, not only on assembly and test and making transceivers in 2015 onwards, optical chip manufacturing had started to move to China. So what we are seeing is not only manufacturing, even design and technology innovation is happening at the chip level in China now. So it's very important to be part of that ecosystem. So it's -- under with Super Photonics, we have an ideal positioning for taking advantage of this explosive growth in China and being able to significantly enhance our presence in this key market. So I'd like to say that, one, we have 1 leg inside the Chinese walls. So we are over the wall. We are regarded as a local supplier with Super Photonics. And also as in having being a North American company, we are working with next-generation customers and therefore, the next-generation solutions as well. We want to expand this presence in China with synergistic acquisitions to expand our revenue opportunities in datacom and telecom and take advantage of the enterprise valuations that exist there, which are 15 to 25x of revenue. So it's a great position we are in with Chinese with our joint venture with our subsidiary company in China to really be in that ecosystem and take advantage of expanding our position there. As you already know, we have developed a global footprint for the company in terms of development and manufacturing. Toronto being our corporate headquarters. We established Allentown facility early last year or April, May of last year. So been there for just over a year. Allentown, for those who may not know is where the optical chip and optical component development started with Bell Labs about 30, 40 years ago. And there are many companies in the optical space that have emerged there. We have taken advantage of that and established our facility. The team, the total cumulative experience of the team in the optical components space that exists at POET Allentown would be over 300 years of experience. In a short -- in a small industry with a short life here, that is quite, I would say, commendable. And Singapore continues to lead our interposer design and development with a strong and capable team there that have vast experience in semiconductor design, manufacturing integration. So that is a hub for our interposer development. And this year, we have established Shenzhen, China, which -- and recruited team from multiple disciplines within the optical space, whether it be system design, optical engine design, reference design, mechanical design and test design and whatnot. So this is a key theme here in China to work with our customers, help with the development, also collaborate with us, a joint venture in Xiamen. And then, of course, joint venture in Xiamen, China for assembly test sales, so NPI, as we indicated earlier and having a partner like SAIC is really I was there, as Suresh mentioned, we can see that they are -- they share our vision and really providing the support and resources there to enable success of this joint venture. And of course, with SilTerra in Malaysia, where our interposer manufacturing is done. We have a team that I joined a leadership team 2 years ago. It's an honor to come and join Suresh and Tom. Suresh being, I would say, a world leader in semiconductor technology. And Tom, not only being a finance leader, but being -- having led both public and private companies as Chairman and CEO. And myself joining them is really, I think, is synergistic in terms of bringing in the optical background and experience from my side. So we have a senior leadership team that we have recruited together over the last few years. One area now going to -- now as we are moving into commercialization would be recruiting a leadership role in product line management, which we plan to do in Q1 of next year. So this rounds up our world-class leadership team as we look forward to growing the company both organically as well as inorganically. So with that, thank you again for your time, for your confidence in the company. It is an exciting time for POET, and we look forward to moving forward together here. With that, I will hand it over to Tom, our CFO. Thank you. Tom, do you have control? Tom?

All right. Finally, I'm unmuted.

Do you have control, Tom?

I believe I do, yes.

Okay. Great.

All right. Thank you very much, Vivek. And thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your attendance today. We have quite a number of people joining, I think the number is up to about 230. I'd also like to mention that all 6 directors just elected are also participating in this event. It's been a very busy year for POET and a particularly busy year for the area that I lead. Last October, we signed a very large agreement, a joint venture agreement with Sanan. In January, we did a public offering, bringing new investors into the company. We held a special meeting for the purpose of asking our shareholders to allow us to consolidate the stock. We made application to the NASDAQ. We prepared a number of items for the conference of OFC including a video, participated in a lot of investor conferences. And along the way, the company doubled in size. Basically, we went from 25 people to 50 people over that period of time. Until recently, the organization associated with finance and administration haven't really kept up with this growth. But I'm pleased to say that we were able to add 2 full-time people to our team and a couple of part-time people as well. During this year, we're also engaged for the first time in the Sarbanes-Oxley 404B audit, which those of you who have -- who are knowledgeable about public companies, who know that's an immense effort and that's being led by Mr. Kevin Barnes, our Vice President of Finance and Administration. We're also doing intercompany transfer pricing, which is of itself a huge effort. What is really emerging as key priorities for us in the company are our internal controls, obviously, because of the 404 audit. We're also trying to upgrade overall our information technology systems and to be more active in our intellectual property areas, particularly in the patenting area. We have made efforts in that, but we're redoubling our efforts to patent -- apply for more patents and to document our trade secrets. We're also with as many people as are coming in, we needed to add people to our human resources effort, which we've done. I know you're all interested in our capital structure and particularly in warrants. So we made an effort in the last press release that we sign out to disclose on an unaudited preliminary basis, what our cash is at the end of the quarter as of September 30. And to report on our current cash burn and the status of the warrants. So in our capital structure, we have some 443 million fully diluted shares, which includes options and warrants. And the total shares outstanding are 354 million. All of the options and warrants that we have outstanding are in fact in the money, meaning that their strike prices are lower than the actual market price currently. But that is, as you know, a fluctuating situation, although we're confident that they will remain in the money. Regarding the warrants that are expiring on November 2, 2021. These were 5-year paper warrants that were issued in connection with the Rodman offering 5 years ago. In fact, 5 years ago, it was the date that I joined POET. Those have a strike price of CAD 0.52 equal to USD 0.39. We have about 11 million of those still unexercised with a value of about U.S. $4.5 million. We know most of the warrant holders that have these 11 million warrants. And I can tell you that most of them are long-term shareholders. So we really don't expect much downward pressure on the stock price as these warrants are exercised or converted into shares. We expect most of the current warrant holders will be holding that stock rather than offering it on the open market. The other thing we've done in the last year is really try to increase our investor and public outreach. And we've got a lot more coming in the pipeline during the next 3 months in the fourth quarter. Not all of the conferences have been confirmed, but we expect we'll do the large majority of the ones that are listed on this slide. Also wanted to point you to agoracom.com, where we have done interviews the day of or the day after the press releases are sent out. And it's called beyond the press release. I would encourage shareholders to go to our website where you can find links to those interviews. They're really quite useful to explain the background to some of these press releases that we're putting out. And we will do more of those. We recently hired Adrian Brijbassi for content creation. Many shareholders, particularly those who are on the AGORACOM platform, know Adrian. He's an author and a journalist. And in fact, he was very helpful and the lead on the script for our video production that we did for the OFC called Singular in its Genius the POET Optical Interposer. And if you haven't seen that, I encourage you to go to our website. It's on the maiden page of the website. Adrian is particularly focused on the social media aspect of our outreach and is supporting the Shelton Group, whom we've worked with for several years, who are really a first-rate investor relations firm. We have also recently enrolled Suresh Venkatesan in Forbes Technology Council. And that is actually a very good place for interaction among CEOs and for just general exposure of Suresh and of the company in those forms. Finally, I know there's much interest in the NASDAQ listing. We did go to shareholders back earlier in the year to ask for the authority to consolidate. And we were trying to be prepared. The fact is market conditions change frequently. And as we're in communication with bankers both in Canada and in the United States, we wanted to be sure that if something did come up, that we were ready to go to the NASDAQ. We're qualified for the NASDAQ Capital Market under 2 of their 3 standards. We've submitted the application. It's completed. We still have to become DTC eligible, which is what allows you to move shares electronically from one owner to another. And that's been submitted by our new transfer agent Computershare. We have reserved the symbol POET, and the NASDAQ is waiting for us to determine the timing of the listing and the reverse split ratio to achieve the ideal balance of price and number of shares outstanding. And that, of course, will be determined by how well the stock performs, our stock price performs over the next several months because we anticipated that this would be a period of time in which we would be able to announce various customer engagements and potentially some design wins. And to encourage people to understand what we believe is the great potential for this company. Regarding the TSX and the TSXV, We will either retain the TSXV listing or we will graduate to the TSX. And the graduation is specifically documented in the rules of the TSX. We do qualify as a nonexempt technology issuer. But one of the downsides is that the listing and the annual fees are considerably higher than those in the venture exchange. So we really haven't decided yet whether we will be on the TSX or the TSXV, but we will certainly maintain 1 of those listings in Canada to accommodate our Canadian shareholders. And that is all I have on finance and administration. So it's time to move to the question and answers. And I'll give people some time to key in some questions. We have received some already. And I have the distinct privilege of asking various members of the management team, the questions that have come through so far.

Tom, while you have the floor at this point, I just want to ask 1 question from 1 shareholder that he wants to know, why has there been such a disconnect between the stock price and what we've heard so far at this presentation with regard to customer communication and adoption?

Well, thanks, Kevin, for that question. I was actually hoping that you would answer that. It's really difficult for us to know what the answer to that question is. We do a lot in acquiring new investors and talking to new potential investors. In fact, the conferences that we do are less of the public part of those conferences that are often webcast are much less important than the individual one-on-ones that we do usually typically that day. And we've met with 50 or so different types of funds over the last year, probably more than that actually. And there's a lot of interest. Of course, different funds invest at different times. I think what is -- what may be lacking in some respects is, this is a brand-new technology. And it -- for some investors, this requires some evidence of acceptance by the market in general. And we believe that we are providing that evidence now through our customer engagements. Actually -- and I hope that answers the question. And I hope that based on the news that we are -- we presented over the last few days and few weeks and the news to come that the stock price will reflect that. I do have a related question here from [Victor Vialli], who's answered -- asked a number of questions. And this one, I will direct to Vivek. Vivek, we have a lot of customers, potential customers and others under NDAs. And there's some interest in knowing how many NDAs we have out there. But also when from another shareholder asking a related question, when are we going to be able to reveal customer names?

Okay. Thanks, Tom, and thank you for your question, [Victor]. So I don't -- I wouldn't know top of my head how many NDAs, but there are -- if I was to guess, top, it's probably 100. Tom, maybe you can help me. You also help with, you manage our NDAs. But yes, it's a lot. We have to -- in this industry, one of the things with technology is no one wants to get their what they are doing out to the public because it could compromise their competitive edge, okay? That is where everyone wants to be first. People as they partner with supply chain partners, so customers that are talking to us don't want to reveal to their competitors who they are using because their competitors would also come to us to get that. So it is a situation because of the industry because of the competitiveness that those type of information cannot be revealed. Same thing with partners, many partners and for us also, there are some partners we cannot reveal, and we would not like to reveal either. But the best we can do in terms of communication, we are doing that, and we hope it gives an indication of where we are and how much progress we are doing. So in terms of -- I think the second question was when will we be able to reveal customer names. So it's related to my first answer or response to [Victor's] question, is, again, we -- from our side, as a supply chain partner, technology provider, we do want to announce and mention. And as I mentioned, our customers need to, in a way, restrict that in order to not give competitive edge. But then at conferences like at CIOE and when the -- when it opens up more, I hope next year at OFC, we will visit. I would encourage all of you to come and visit and take a look and see the customers we are interacting with, the demonstrations we are doing.

So [Mr. Liota] has a question which I think is somewhat of a misunderstanding. He says, we have 4 committed customers that you showed on the slide, but we've only been able to announce 1 at this point. I think [Mr. Liota] is missing the fact that we have customers, for example, in the optical computing space. And -- but maybe, Vivek, you can provide...

Yes, I think it aligns quite well. I think I can align the 4. So Tom, as you mentioned, one space, again, that we've been -- we have a committed customer. We are working with and different phases and generation. So it's not only a one-off. Then there are a couple of opportunities that we recently announced, LR4, CWDM4. And then we announced along with the China conference fiber top customer that design win. So I think the -- it does align with the number 4. If I have to think hard, there's probably a couple more coming very shortly that we'll be able to at least in some way, share. So -- but there is restrictions in what we can do and announce.

Right. And it's also important to clarify that we talk about opportunities and design wins and they are product specific. So a single customer may have interest in 5 product lines, for example, that shows up as 5 opportunities or wins even though it might only be a single customer?

Yes. That's a great point, Suresh. I think for our shareholders to realize it's not a number of customers that could be in a consumer or even consumer, Apple may get 1 customer that they'll supply live phone, iPad and whatnot. So a number of opportunities is important to look at, not just number of customers.

So Suresh, you mentioned at the Oppenheimer Conference, I believe, that the LR4 space could be a "unicorn" or that POET could be a unicorn in the space. Could you elaborate on that?

Yes, sure. Look, I think they're in the 100/200 LR4, the wavelength band separations are extremely tight, and these are not readily achievable by any alternate integration technology that's out there. So it's one of those areas that POET has the ability to address, and we've known that, and we've known that for a while, and we've kind of had some designs and evaluations and validations that we were working on independent of customers just to get a sense. But I think there's a big resurgence, if you will, in that LR market. We'd initially kind of tabled that and said we wouldn't particularly push for it because it was niche. But that niche has grown quite substantially, and it happens to be an area where there is relatively little competition and in an area that, of course, as volume grows, there's always a need to kind of lower cost, and we have the ability to do that. More importantly, that space is -- there is a standard product aspect of it, but there is also a custom aspect to it, where especially in the telco solutions in the head of the network, there is aggregation of multiengine-type solutions. And as we've said many times, there aren't too many people. In fact, there's probably just one and that's POET that today can incorporate multiple engines inside of a single module. And so as these opportunities of multiple engines or kind of our eyes open into what is feasible and possible in that space, we do believe we're extremely well positioned to be able to supply and kind of dominate that segment. And so I think we've kind of tacked a bit. I think that's why I said it's important that we look at -- yes, we look at what we want to do and then we look at accomplishments and trace. And I don't think a year ago, we said we're going to be putting our products in the LR segment. But things develop, markets change. People come and ask, "Can you do this?" And to the extent that we're ready, we're able to quickly adapt our platform to be able to provide these solutions. And this LR4 market happens to be one of them. We -- of course, we have to build up our supply chain in order to -- and that's why there's a delay relative to CWDM. I mean we have to get wafers. We have to get lasers. We have to get the supply chain built up. But fundamentally, the assembly, the approach is all platform driven. And so our ability to spawn solutions in that space is made easier as a consequence. So yes, I do believe that we have an opportunity to dominate it is a tough segment for people to compete in and compete with us in. And so we will see, obviously, a lot more emphasis from both the POET side as well as in the customer access for these kinds of solutions.

Suresh, are there any other applications where the POET optical interposer platform greatly separates us from the competition?

Yes. I think we are an integration platform. So to the extent that there are applications that require the integration of multichannel WDM applications, which is basically where the industry is headed kind of going forward from here, we start providing significant value. I think 400-gig FR4 is one such application. We're 3 years on in the industry with a lot of the top companies working on 400-gig. There is not a really viable cost-effective FR4 solutions. So the market is primarily looking at parallel optics, which is not WDM-faced. But when we do an FR4 in Q1 to Q2 of next year, once the modulator is ready, that would be another such eye-popping product because we have the ability to provide that kind of WDM or wavelength division multiplexing multichannel solutions. And as that channel count increases, POET's value increases with it.

Tom, in the past, you've made the presentations noting that Q4 2021 or Q1 2022 would be the time line for the NASDAQ listing. Now you haven't provided any guidelines today. Are those dates still -- that time line still valid?

Yes. We believe that time line is still valid. I would say that it's more -- much more likely to be in Q1 '22 than in Q4. But again, it's really opportunistic. What you see in the market is that there are kind of waves of interest that come through the banking segment. And I've been in situations where the bankers call us and say, "Hey, we've got a lot of interest in this, and you're in that sector. So are you ready to do an offering. But this is going to be a little bit more structured. We would see this listing as being kind of almost initial public introduction or offering in the U.S. We're very focused on making sure that we're trying as best we can to ensure that we have research coverage. And of course, they're -- when you're talking to the banking side, the research analyst side is completely separate from the banking side. So we talked to a lot of analysts, and there is some interest. We -- actually, we had a note sent out today by Core-Mark, about POET in Canada. And the path to institutional investors in the United States is through the analysts. So that's our main interest is in talking to them and occasionally, we need to be prepared to be opportunistic. In this case, I think we're going to do a much more structured kind of presentation to the market. And so we will do that when we're ready, but we expect that will probably be in Q1 rather than Q4. There's a question about, and I think either -- I think probably Vivek could take this. Do we expect design wins to fund the company over the next 2 years?

You mean NREs, I assume?

Yes. I think that's basically the question. NRE followed up by production. I think it's question having to do with timing, right? What's the expectation? Or what does the cycle look like between contract for doing a design and actually then going into production. What's the length of time that is required by that? And how much funding can we really expect in doing NRE projects of the types that we're doing now?

So there are 2 types of NREs, one that we had got a couple of years ago or 2, 3 years ago for technology demonstration from large company, I think we had announced without giving the name, we are past that. So there's 2 segments of NREs. One that we are getting now. For basically 1 of the strengths of our platform is we can customize to customer needs, okay, for standard applications, but they may want to use it and stack it up in certain ways. And we are able to do that. So that is an NRE, which will result in revenue and we'll sell products to the customer after that. So it's not in millions of dollars. It is, again, dependent on amount of design changes and effort we need to put in. So it can be in 6 digits, but it's not in 7-digit kind of dollars here. So we will continue pursuing that. That fits very well with the POET model. It also provides funding for our design and development that we do for the customers. The other is in the NREs for next-generation products and solutions, which may be, again, specific to certain customers. We're also pursuing that, and we expect to get -- it's not going to be a huge number of such contracts, but we do expect to get some over the course of next 2 years, let's say. So we will continue that. Will it fund the company? I think, Tom, you're in a better position, but I think it will provide a good pipeline to increment the work we are doing and which is aligned. So all these, again, NREs, we don't just do an NRE contract because we are getting money. We want to make sure it strategically aligns with our road map with our development and where our mission and vision that Suresh presented. So it's important that it's alignment. So we get the NRE, but we are moving forward in the direction we want to, okay? The length of time, second question from, I believe, the question was design win to production. So we are dependent on the customer and customers' customers for that. I've said this in previous times, I believe it could be anywhere between 3 to 9 months, 3 months best case, but 9 months is usually a long enough time frame, so to get that into revenue.

I think the other point that can be made on this is as in the press release that we sent out a couple of days ago, typically, these types of NRE are also associated with the orders for initial units that are used for qualification. So there's typically, and correct me if I'm wrong, there's typically a purchase order of a small amount connected to these kinds of contracts.

Absolutely right, Tom. Yes, thanks for pointing that out.

For you, Vivek, there's a question about the Sanan joint venture and SPX in terms of what its capacity is, so if you could review what JV is doing today and what kind of capacity, I guess, in unit volume, it may have going forward?

Yes. So in our business plan that we presented to Sanan when we did the joint venture and Sanan has committed to putting in the investment, both in OpEx and CapEx. The capacity, I can't give exact numbers here, but that commitment of capital expenditure is at a point where we would become a major supplier in the world -- in the market. And also the joint venture would be self-sustaining at that point, at least for its normal business for strategic because there could be additional investment. But today's capacity is starting off. It's proving out at least in our minimum viable capacity situation. But then we are -- the commitment -- again, it's a contractual commitment on capital expenditure is there from Sanan. In addition, we have a location within the Sanan's present clean room for, I think there was 1 small picture in the slides we presented showing some of the equipment there. And then there is a whole new technology park that Sanan is heavily invested and developing, where next year, our joint venture will move into that with the space being 5x of what it is. So we enjoy the Sanan's infrastructure and the investments at actually a low cost to the joint venture here. So the capacity is not going to be a restriction on our growth here.

So Tom, with regard to the uplift in NASDAQ, is there are any offerings associated with that, would that be done pre or post the consolidation?

Yes. So thanks for that question, Kevin. I see a number of other questions around things like revenue projections and our plans to do offerings. I just have to point out, number one, that public companies sometimes give guidance, not always, but they rarely give revenue projections. And it's just not wise to do because it's seen by some investors as promises made. When you're in a position of having large backlogs, you may be able to predict what your revenue and earnings are going to be in the coming quarter. We are not in that situation. The other thing is that it would be very unwise for us to comment on any plans that we might have for raising additional capital. Our job is to ensure that the company has sufficient capital to do what it needs to do to grow in the market. And so we always need to keep those options open. It's not saying that we're planning anything imminently, but I think that when you look at the job that we have ahead of us and the need to expand out of the datacom space into other vertical markets, it's naturally going to require investment. And it will depend on what our internal projections are as to what our revenues and level of investment needs to be. And then the Board of Directors will determine whether we should be issuing any additional shares or not. And that applies also to anything having to do with the timing of per year post reverse split. So I just don't think it's wise for us to answer those questions. And I believe that covers all of the questions that we had today. So I'd like to turn it back to I think, Suresh, for any closing comments.

Yes. Thanks, Tom. Look, I think you've heard from Tom and Vivek, I think we're committed to the success of this company. We continue to be in a challenging business climate and environment. But we've so far been able to navigate that effectively, and we expect to be able to continue to do that. The platform that really we've been breathing in and out for the past 4 or 5 years is starting to get to a point where we're no longer talking to customers with PowerPoint slides, but with real hardware, and that makes a big difference, and it's starting to open doors and eyes. We have our work cut out for us. I mean we've got a busy Q4. And then we've got all of these betas and productions to be ready for in Q1 and thereafter. And so our journey doesn't end with customer #1. I mean that's just the beginning of a fresh kind of start to kind of the business and, if you will, of what POET has been about for the past 5 years. And so we're looking forward to that. I think we have the right people on the team to capitalize on this opportunity. I think we were extremely technology centric for the past several years, and that's now changing. And it's great to have folks like Vivek and Ad and others on our team that have done this before, and they have contacts with the right people in the industry to be able to get that customer pipeline built up. So I'm extremely bullish about what we can accomplish together. We've got these new opportunities in LR4 that are exciting and extremely differentiated. And they are more blue ocean. If you understand the term blue ocean strategy as opposed to red because it's an area that there is limited competition to integration that we're excited about. And I'm also looking forward to making a splash with 400-gig next year. So I think we've got a lot on our plate. I'm thankful to the shareholders for their understanding and their support over this time and their continued support going forward. And we obviously try to ensure that your value is protected and grown in this company, and we'll continue to do that going forward. So again, thank you for your time. Thank you for your engagement, your support and all of your suggestions over the period of time, we do periodically listen and take action and when we can. So please stay engaged and I look forward to a productive year coming up.

Good. Thank you, Suresh. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Vivek, for the presentations. And again, we want to express our gratitude to shareholders. Thank you all for joining us for this annual special meeting. And we look forward to, as Suresh mentioned, to hearing from you again and hearing from you in the future. And certainly, we will always be in contact with you. We will continue to reach out to you, and we look forward to meeting with you guys again in the near future. Again, thank you all for joining us here on this platform. Please stay safe.