On February 4, 2000, Avanex shares more than quadrupled in a single afternoon. The Fremont company had sold just $10.9 million of products in the prior six months, and its biggest buyer, MCI WorldCom, also owned a piece of it. None of that mattered. Avanex made photonic processors, small devices that sorted and steered beams of light inside fiber optic networks, and in early 2000 anything that promised more bandwidth looked priceless.

More Colors in the Glass

Simon Cao founded Avanex in 1997 around a simple promise: squeeze more data down the fiber that carriers had already buried. Long-haul networks sent many colors of light down one strand, each color carrying its own stream. Avanex built parts that packed those colors closer together and kept them clean over long distances. Carriers were racing to add capacity for the internet boom, and every extra channel per fiber saved them from digging new trenches.

From $172 to a Merger

Avanex priced its offering at $36 a share and raised about $216 million on Nasdaq under AVNX. By the close of its first day the stock traded near $172. The telecom bust hit within a year, as carriers stopped buying and the company's market value collapsed. Avanex spent the next decade cutting costs and buying rivals' optical units. In April 2009 it merged with Bookham in an all-stock deal, and the combined company took the name Oclaro.

Cover: Landscape with Sun Breaking Through Clouds, Unknown artist. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for sun breaking through clouds (light, routed).