Tech: Buddy Technologies signs 10-year deal for its smart lighting platform, shares bounce off recent lows

Internet of Things (IoT) company Buddy Technologies (ASX:BUD) has found a Chinese buyer for its LIFX smart-lighting platform.

The company has signed a 10-year licensing agreement with Eastfield Lighting, a Hong-Kong based company that runs lighting factories in Shenzhen, China.

Over the term of the arrangement, Buddy plans to provide a minimum of 500,000 smart lighting products to Eastfield.

In return it will get a non-refundable payment of $250,000 up front, along with licence fees payable per piece of product manufactured, per quarter.

BUD shares found momentum in morning trade to reach 2.7c — still well off 2019 highs of above 10c.

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Within its product suite, Buddy offers a “Fitbit for buildings” solution that helps commercial property companies monitor energy consumption in their buildings.

Earlier this year, the company expanded to the retail side with its acquisition of the LIFX business in a $US51m ($75.1m) deal. The transaction was financed by a $US18.1m capital raising along with some additional debt.

The agreement with Eastfield is Buddy’s “largest to date” for its LIFX platform. The company said Eastfield manufactured around 10 million lights per week, across consumer products as well as government infrastructure and commercial lighting.

Under the detailed licensing terms, Buddy said Eastfield customers would have different options for controlling their smart-lighting products, including publicly available mobile applications, or custom applications run by Buddy’s managed services team.

Buddy CEO David McLauchlan said partnering with companies such as Eastfield was the “fastest way for us to place our technologies into some of the most prominent brands and products”.

The company said the 10-year term of the deal could be terminated upon mutual agreement at any time with six months notice.

In other ASX tech news today:

Consumer finance platform Wisr (ASX:WZR) just surpassed the $150m milestone in total loans written. The company said that after the first $50m that took 45 months to complete, the next $100m was issued in a combined 14 months. Shares in Wizr rose almost 9 per cent in morning trade to 14.7c.

And music technology company Jaxsta (ASX:JXT) launched the beta version of Jaxsta Pro, the “business-to-business subscription-based service targeting music industry professionals”. The company said its premium B2B services included features such as profile management, market insights and event calendars. Shares in Jaxsta rose 10 per cent in morning trade to 27.5c.