Kraken began in 2016 as the customer and billing platform for Octopus Energy, the retailer Greg Jackson founded. Octopus built its own system rather than buy one, and it ran cheaply enough that other energy companies wanted it.
Licensing started in 2018, when Hanwha's Australian retail arm chose Kraken. Good Energy followed in 2019. In 2020 Origin Energy, E.ON and npower signed up, and in 2021 EDF agreed to move about 5 million customers onto the platform.
A retailer and a software vendor want different things. In August 2024 Amir Orad was named Kraken's own CEO, and in January 2025 the platform was reported to serve 60 million customer accounts. TalkTalk joined in 2025.
In December 2025 Octopus announced the Kraken spin-off. About US$1 billion of minority stock was sold at a valuation of about US$8.65 billion, with Hanwha Group and Tokyo Gas as strategic partners. Octopus keeps roughly 14 percent.
Read the full Kraken (Octopus Energy's Kraken Technologies) founder story