Release the Kraken! Octopus expands tech platform to water and broadband services
Kraken Technologies, the cloud-native platform owned by Octopus Energy (Octopus), is extending its tentacles into the utilities sector.
It will look to provide water and broadband services, with a new business dedicated to the utility industry.
Kraken Utilities will be the first all-service technology platform for the sector, and will work across Octopus’ main tech hubs in London, Manchester, Houston, Silicon Valley, Sydney and Tokyo.
The team will be led by, Deepak Ravindran who is moving over from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where has worked as a senior partner and managing director.
He has been involved as a partner to Octopus since 2018.
To build the platform, Kraken Utilities is hiring for 50 open positions – adding to the 250 technologists, spreading across product development, tech and go-to-market teams.
Since 2020, its parent company Kraken has contracted 25m accounts in energy, accounting for over 40 per cent of UK energy customers.
Clients include EDF, E.On, Octopus, Origin, Tokyo Gas, Good Energy and Hanwha’s Nectr.
Greg Jackson, founder of Octopus 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.”