It's time to chalk up another highly successful IPO of an optical networking startup - in spite of the turmoil in tech stocks of the past couple of weeks.

The price of shares in Bookham Technology PLC http://www.bookham.com, a UK-based developer of optical integrated circuits, has climbed by more than 70 percent since trading started yesterday on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ.

In the UK, Bookham's common stock opened yesterday afternoon at £18.50 and reached £32 this morning before dropping back a little to just under £30 as we posted this story. Similar rises were registered on NASDAQ, where American Depositary Shares in Bookham are traded.

Anybody following Light Reading's Stock Tip (see Bookham Technology PLC (BKHM)) would have made a handsome profit, so long as they bought Bookham's shares in the first few hours of trading, when they stayed steady at £18.50 before starting to rise.

Goldman Sachs & Co, which led the flotation, declined to say whether the IPO had been oversubscribed. However, investors lucky enough to be allocated stock will get Bookham's common shares for £10 apiece and Bookham's ADSs for $15.83 apiece.

By Peter Heywood, international editor, Light Reading, http://www.lightreading.com