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reg Jackson has the kind of ambition Britain needs from its tech stars.
Rather than just have a great idea then sell out to a Google or a Facebook, he wants to grow his green power brainchild, Octopus, to become the Amazon of Energy .
Today, he took another step forward in that vaulting ambition with a fundraising deal that values his company at $2 billion. Not bad when you consider he only set it up five years ago.
It’s a rare example of a British “double unicorn”.
So what is Octopus Energy?
Octopus is two things. First off, it’s a green energy retailer that supplies 1.8 million homes in the UK and tens of thousands more in the US and Germany. It has contracts with solar and windfarms in the UK (including those of its founder Octopus Investments), and by buying through the grid with certificates that pay green producers for their output.
Illuminate Financial invests in Net Purpose, pioneer in impact data
LONDON, Dec. 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) Net Purpose, a global impact data provider, has completed a $2.5m round led by Illuminate Financial, with participation from Revent Ventures; Jim O Neill, former Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management; Kevin Gould, Co-Founder of Markit; and J Jeffry Louis, former chairman of Gannett Co
. They join existing and new investors, including the Louis family; Matt Cooper, Co-Founder of Capital One Bank and Chairman of Octopus Investments; Sari Miller, Managing Partner, Impact Ventures LLC; Stefano Bernardi from Atomico s Angel Programme; Matt Robinson, Founder of GoCardless and Nested; and Vlad Tropko, Managing Director of Digital Horizon.