Brand Engagement Network (NASDAQ:BNAI) shares surged Wednesday after the company announced an exclusive, perpetual licensing agreement to deploy its sovereign AI technology across Africa, marking its second major international expansion in three months.
The Wilmington-based provider of secure conversational AI finalized a strategic partnership with Valio Technologies (Pty) Ltd to commercialize BEN’s proprietary Engagement Language Model (ELM™) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technologies.
Under the terms of the deal, BEN will receive a $2,050,000 preferred equity contribution from a newly formed South African entity, which will be recognized as upfront intellectual property licensing revenue.
The agreement also grants BEN a 25% common equity stake in the new entity, one board seat, and a 35% recurring revenue share across all software and SaaS subscriptions in the region.
The partnership is designed to address the continent’s tightening data sovereignty and localization laws, providing a "closed-loop" alternative to public AI models that often struggle with regional regulatory compliance.
As part of the launch, BEN and Valio entered into a memorandum of understanding with Nelson Mandela University to pilot an AI-powered mental health support solution.
The initiative will utilize BEN's "iSKYE" platform to provide students with 24/7 emotional support and resources, trained exclusively on institution-approved medical content to ensure safety and privacy.
This follows a similar pilot launched last year at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, signaling a broad commitment to using AI to bridge healthcare gaps in underserved markets.