Octopus Energy Group has raised $550m (£455.3m) in the firm’s latest funding round to improve its energy tech solutions and expand its renewables offering.
Existing shareholders provided the majority of the new funds, giving Octopus Energy Group $325m. The remaining $225m came from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
The company said it will use the extra capital to improve its energy tech platform, known as Kraken. The end-to-end platform was designed to improve the efficiency of energy use, with machine learning automating much of the energy supply chain.
Kraken’s capabilities were last year bolstered with the acquisition of Marvel Lab‘s smart energy technology Configurable.
Octopus licences its proprietary Kraken platform to other energy providers like EDF and E.ON.
“We are in grasping distance of a clean, cheap, secure energy system – but it needs continued boldness from innovators like Octopus, and the backing of visionary investors like CPP Investments, Generation, Origin and Tokyo Gas,” said Octopus Energy Group’s founder and chief executive Greg Jackson.
Canada Pension Plan’s managing director and head of sustainable energies Bruce Hogg said: “As global investors, we seek to work with leading tech-enabled energy companies and in the evolution to a low carbon world.
“Investing in the energy transition is important to access untapped potential, and provide opportunities for delivering attractive long-term, risk-adjusted returns and to CPP contributors and beneficiaries.”
The new funding comes a year after a $600m (£497m) investment into Octopus Energy from Generation, which is chaired by former US Vice President Al Gore.
Octopus Energy, like many other energy suppliers in the UK, announced earlier this year that it would be increasing its prices.
The across-the-board rise in energy costs is a key contributing factor to the economic situation described as the cost-of-living crisis.
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