TORONTO, May 18, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- POET Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:POET) (the "Corporation"), the designer and developer of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs), light sources and optical modules for the AI and data center markets, today announced it had closed its recently announced registered direct offering by issuing19,047,620 common shares (the "Common Shares") and a warrant exercisable for 19,047,620 Common Shares (the "Warrant" and together with the Common Shares, the "Offered Securities"). The sale in a non-brokered offering to a single institutional investor raised gross proceeds of US$400,000,020 for the Corporation. The agreed price for each offered security was US$21.00, a premium over the closing price of the Corporation's common shares as quoted on the NASDAQ Capital Market of US$20.57 on Thursday, May 14, 2026. The accompanying warrant is exercisable for a period of three years from today's date at an exercise price of US$26.25 per Common Share, representing a 25% premium over the selling price of the offered securities.

The Corporation intends to use the net proceeds from this investment to accelerate its strategic roadmap across three key dimensions of capacity, capability and credibility. This includes the expansion of its manufacturing infrastructure, support for corporate development activities, including targeted acquisitions, scaling up of R&D, acceleration of the light source business, expanding operations, and general working capital.

"We are in the process of expanding our capacity by roughly ten-fold in both wafer production and optical engine assembly in order to support a transition to higher volume manufacturing into 2027," said Dr. Suresh Venkatesan, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of POET. "This expansion is being driven by the agreement we announced last week with Lumilens as well as other high-volume opportunities that are near to fruition. In parallel with our manufacturing scale-up, we have accelerated the hiring of engineering, technical and management talent, bringing our total headcount to more than 115 globally. We have also expanded our Singapore lab and office footprint by nearly three times compared to last year and now have 20,000 square feet of assembly space in Malaysia."

"Corporate development is a high priority for the ...