Octopus’ Kraken platform expands into water

Kraken Technologies, the provider of Octopus Energy’s proprietary end-to-end energy services platform, has announced it is expanding into other utility sectors such as water and broadband.

The cloud-based platform now has more 25 million customer accounts, including more than 40% of UK energy customers, after being licensed to a number of other energy company’s across the world, including EDF, Eon, Origin and Tokyo Gas.

As part of the expansion, the company has formed a new business, Kraken Utilities, led by Deepak Ravindran who was previously a senior partner and managing director at Boston Consulting Group. Ravindran has previously founded his own technology business, taking it from concept through to an initial public offering, and has been involved as a partner to Octopus Energy Group since 2018.

Kraken Utilities is hiring for another 50 positions to add to Kraken’s existing team of 250 people. They will be spread across its main technology hubs in London, Manchester, Houston, Silicon Valley, Sydney and Tokyo.

Greg Jackson, founder of Octopus Energy Group, said: “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.

“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.”

Deepak Ravindran, chief executive of Kraken Utilities, said: “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.

“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.”