Octopus Energy enters Italy with acquisition of customer-obsessed energy firm SATO

• UK entech pioneer targeting 1 million energy accounts in Italy by 2025
• Fast-growth disruptor investing €60m to fuel Italian expansion
• Italy to be the third country to see Octopus Energy combine its renewable generation and retail business following the UK and Spain

London, Ascoli Piceno, November 25th, 2021: UK entech pioneer Octopus Energy today announces the acquisition of Italian energy business SATO Luce e Gas in a mission to bring cheaper, green power to customers across the country and shake up the market.

Octopus Energy Italy, as the new entity will be called, is targeting 1 million Italian energy accounts by 2025 (5% of the market). The rapid expansion will be driven by an initial investment of €60 million from Octopus Energy, coming soon after the $600 million injection from Al Gore-backed Generation Investment Management that Octopus Energy Group received in October 2021. The investment valued the company at $4.6 billion, rivalling that of many long-established energy giants including long time market leader British Gas.

Octopus’s plan for Italy will follow a similar path to its business in the UK, combining both retail energy and renewable generation to unlock innovative green electricity tariffs and allow customers to benefit from cheaper, greener power. Octopus Energy Italy will offer better options for them by combining cutting-edge technology and customer obsessiveness with competitively-priced green tariffs.

Octopus Energy is the fastest growing UK energy provider, having gained 3.1m customers since launching just over five years ago. Its success is based on Kraken, its proprietary cloud-based energy technology platform, which provides operational efficiency and outstanding customer service whilst driving a greener grid by unlocking smart tariffs. The acquisition of SATO will enable Octopus to bring this innovation to Italy, accelerating the country’s transition to a cheaper, greener energy system.

SATO Luce e Gas is an Italian energy retailer based in Ascoli Piceno, central Italy. In 2016, new CEO Giorgio Tomassetti took the company on a growth journey with the objective of building a modern energy retailer focused on delivering outstanding customer service through a multi-channel approach. Since then, SATO has become active in 11 Italian regions and grown to supply thousands of customers.

Greg Jackson, CEO and founder of Octopus Energy, comments: “We love our customers, and we love finding other companies that love their customers as much as we do. So that’s why when we met with Giorgio and his team we knew they were absolutely perfect to form our launchpad into the Italian market.

“We have high ambitions for Italy, and we’ve found an amazing team to grow our business and lead the green energy revolution in Italy from the front. We know that the Octopus way works – our teams in the US and Germany have seen their customer bases grow by a factor of five and six respectively over the last year. We’re now taking our approach to Italy, and we can’t wait to see what we can achieve there.”

According to Giorgio Tomassetti, CEO of SATO Luce e Gas, Octopus Energy is the blueprint for how to look after your customers through brilliant technology: “Octopus Energy stands for everything that we believe in, starting from excellent customer service. In SATO we speak directly to customers every day and we know for a fact that many Italians - especially the 40% of households who have never switched - are still treated as numbers by their current energy provider.

“Together with Octopus Energy we will make this approach to customer service a thing of the past, and we will make sure to give Italians a credible alternative, while also helping people decarbonise their homes and join the renewable energy revolution.”

ENDS

Press contact UK

Christina Hess

T: +44 7897 699 195

E: christina.hess@octoenergy.com

Press contact Italy

Luca Maranesi, Ecomunicare

T: +39 335 1860821

E: luca.maranesi@ecomunicare.com

About Octopus Energy Group

Octopus Energy Group is a global energy tech pioneer, launched in 2016 to use technology to unlock a customer focused and affordable green energy revolution. It is part of Octopus Group, which is a certified BCorp. With operations in 12 countries, Octopus Energy Group's mission is going global.

Octopus’s domestic energy arm already serves 3.1 million customers with cheaper greener power, through Octopus Energy, M&S Energy, Affect Energy, Ebico, London Power and Co-op Energy. Octopus Electric Vehicles is helping make clean transport cheaper and easier, and Octopus Energy Services is bringing smart products to thousands of homes. Octopus Energy Generation is one of Europe’s largest investors in renewable energy, managing a £3.4bn portfolio of renewable energy assets throughout the continent.

All of these are made possible by Octopus’s tech arm, Kraken Technologies, which offers a proprietary, in-house platform based on advanced data and machine learning capabilities, Kraken automates much of the energy supply chain to allow outstanding service and efficiency as the world transitions to a decentralised, decarbonised energy system. This technology has been licensed to support over 20 million customer accounts worldwide, through deals with EDF Energy, Good Energy, E.ON energy and Origin Energy.

In September 2021, Octopus Energy Group was valued at $4.6 billion after taking $600 million investment from Generation Investment Management, a firm co-founded and chaired by Al Gore that backs businesses that drive sustainability and the fight against climate change. It was the company’s third major investment round since launching to the market.

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