New Kraken CEO Amir Orad on why the company is all-in on the U.S.

In August, Kraken got a new CEO in Amir Orad. 

The energy management platform is a part of Octopus Energy, the British energy retail and services giant armed with $800 million that it raised last December from its existing shareholders to expand globally.

Kraken originated as the software arm of Octopus. It now manages more than 40 gigawatts of DER capacity and more than 50 million accounts, primarily in regulated competitive markets in the U.K. and Europe. The company’s platform for utilities is designed to streamline everything from customer services to demand flexibility.

But Kraken was not necessarily looking for someone with energy experience in its new CEO. Instead, a global search  landed on Orad, a serial software company leader. Orad has spent 25 years in the world of enterprise technology, including more recently as the CEO of the intelligent data analytics company Sisense.

Software experience aside, though, Orad’s hiring is also evidence of the U.K. company’s shift toward North America. “Part of me joining as a New York-based CEO,” Orad told Latitude Media, “is because gravity is moving to the States. And I can tell you on the record, a good number of the executive team in the next few months will be States-based.”

While Kraken, like Octopus, is looking to expand globally, Orad said the U.S. will get more attention and more resources than other markets: “It is bigger, it is advanced, and it is ripe, over the next decade, for change,” he said. Evidence of this shift appeared during New York Climate Week, when Kraken’s signature maleficent pink octopus mascot appeared on digital billboards in Times Square.

The company started signing U.S. customers before Orad’s arrival. In February, Kraken announced a pilot program with the Avangrid subsidiary United Illuminating. Then in May, the company signed its first North American integrated utility customer, Canada’s Saint John Energy, which is in the process of migrating all of its customers to the energy management platform.

And just last month, Kraken signed the Texas-based Champion Energy Services as its first U.S. client. Under a five-year deal, Champion will license Kraken’s demand flexibility and customer service platforms, and onboard residential customers to the energy management system beginning in 2025. Orad says more customers are coming.

“We’re at a place where the technology is U.S.-ready and deployed,” Orad said. “We have teams on the ground. The interest is growing.”

But he understands why utilities are still cautious. “If I'm a CEO for a utility, the last thing I want to do is touch [my energy management] technology. Don't touch it. Pray every night that nothing will break,” he said. “The problem is that it starts breaking. And the problem is that the industry is changing, and suddenly wind and solar are real and EVs are real. So they are exploring.” 

And Kraken has the luxury of taking its time, he said, especially because it is backed by a number of long-term investors — including pension funds in the U.S. and Canada and Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management partnership. That allows the company to focus on building a sustainable business without the pressure of providing immediate returns. 

Orad is proud that the company’s engineers vastly outnumber salespeople; his back-of-the-envelope math put the numbers at 1,400 engineers to fewer than 10 salespeople.

“Some companies hire a salesperson to lead the company,” Orad said. “We have only less than 10 salespeople. We don't need another salesperson. We need someone who knows technology and business and scale to combine the three globally. That's why I'm here.”

Demand for the product has been driven by three factors, Orad said: increasing deployment of renewables, adoption of EVs, and regulatory changes. Updating dozens of utility systems in response to these shifts, Orad said, costs “a fortune.” But operating in the cloud, via a single platform like Kraken’s, makes things easier. 

“People see this pain, they see this old tech, they see the EVs and solar, they see the renewables, and they understand it’s time to change,” Orad said. “It won’t happen all overnight, which is fine, but it is happening.” 

The company is ambitious, with plans to become a truly global company (though Orad acknowledged that certain markets, like China, are tricky enough that delving in is still years off). But it has no plans to expand its platform beyond utilities.

“I believe generic companies that try to do everything for everyone become irrelevant to everyone very quickly,” Orad said. “I want to do a few things really well for a lot of people.” 

Beyond the U.S., for now Kraken is focusing on other markets that have a high potential for renewable adoption and electrification, which include Japan, France, and of course the company’s home of the U.K. 

To be clear, the focus on the U.S. is not because the country is so far ahead. In fact, it’s largely the opposite. “We’re definitely focusing on markets that have a bigger need and a bigger opportunity to make an impact,” Orad said. “And the U.S. is sitting nicely in the middle of that list, which is why we’re investing so much here.”