Octopus Energy’s cloud-native platform Kraken Technologies is expanding to target other utilities, such as water and broadband.
The platform serves over 25 million accounts in the energy sector currently, including around 40% of UK energy customers. It is used in six different countries by companies including EDF, E.On, Octopus, Origin, Tokyo Gas, Good Energy and Hanwha’s Nectr. It has already gone through c. 20 rapid, successful migrations.
Building on this end-to-end entech platform, the company is now launching Kraken Utilities, opening up the company’s offering to other traditionally low-tech sectors.
“We’ve increasingly been approached by water companies, telcos and other utilities who saw the way that Kraken has transformed customer and employee experience in energy, whilst driving down costs and opening up whole new opportunities through technology and customer engagement,” said Greg Jackson, founder of Octopus Energy Group.
“With forward-thinking utilities and regulators seeking to benefit from lower operating costs, better customer experience and exploiting whole new efficiencies through machine learning and big data, we’ve been working hard to expand Kraken from its revolutionary position in energy to offer these advantages across all utilities.”
Kraken Utilities will be headed up by Deepak Ravindran, who is joining the company from Boston Consulting Group where he was a senior partner and managing director. Additionally, he has taken a tech business he founded from concept to IPO, and been a partner to Octopus Energy Group since 2018.
In addition to Ravindran joining the company, Kraken Utilities is hiring for 50 new positions. These hires will work with the 250 product development, tech and go-to-market employees already working for the Octopus Group, and will be spread across its main tech hubs in London, Houston, Sydney, Manchester, Silicon Valley and Tokyo.
“Kraken is well on its way to revolutionising the energy sector. It has brought a new level of customer centricity and now powers the most loved energy utilities globally,” Ravindran said.
“But energy doesn’t need to be the only utility which can benefit from the Kraken model. Many companies seek to become more customer centric and efficient – Kraken’s unique combination of low-risk transformation to a digital-first operation is a huge opportunity for these companies. This is an incredibly exciting time for me, and the whole team here, to help bring this transformation to great companies across the globe.”
Kraken has grown substantially over the past few years, and now delivers around 100 releases per day, supported by an array of automated testing.
In 2021, the software licensing business grew by 584% over the year. As such, its revenue increased from £10.2 million to £69.4 million, making an operating profit of £46 million or £60 million EBITDA excluding tech amortisation charges. This substantially boosted the wider Octopus Energy Group’s revenue, which itself increased by 62%.
