Greg Jackson is not a product of Silicon Valley but of Saltburn, a small seaside town near Middlesbrough, where he was brought up by a single mother. 

Yet the Octopus Energy founder can lay claim to being one of the UK's most prominent tech entrepreneurs.

Jackson is lining up the company's tech arm, Kraken Technologies, for a £6 billion flotation and is up for listing Octopus Energy too.

'Yeah, potentially,' he says. 'Both would go straight into the FTSE 100. How proud would I be if that happened?'

He has grounds for pride. Not only has he risen from a difficult childhood in the North-East, but he is also winning plaudits as a customer service champion, a hard act to pull off at an energy company.

The £6 billion question on the lips of Jackson's rivals, though, is whether it is all as marvellous as it seems. Octopus Energy, founded ten years ago, has 7.9 million customers and has overtaken British Gas as the UK's biggest domestic energy supplier.

Kraken – a platform that manages customer service and supply, from bills to electric car charging – is at the heart of the business.

Named after the mythical sea monster, it is used by competitors including E.On and EDF, and enables better service in a sector that is notorious for its dire treatment of customers.

It has been hailed as one of the most valuable British technology start-ups of the past ten years, though some analysts consider the valuations being bandied about to be ambitious.

Kraken is a 'software as a service' business, and these have taken a hammering on markets in the past few days over fears they could be disrupted by artificial intelligence tools. That said, a lot will happen on the markets between now and the float, which is pencilled in for 2027 or 2028.

But why spin off Kraken?

'We had to separate it off as it's rather hard selling software to other companies whilst we are competing with them in the energy market,' Jackson says.

It will give him, and other staff who hold shares, a payday.

There are also murmurings of another motive: that the float is driven by a need to raise capital to meet financial resilience rules laid down by regulator Ofgem.

These are meant to ensure that the public does not lose out if an energy company goes under.

This is something Jackson pooh-poohs. Certainly the mood was buoyant as I circulated among staff and guests at a party in the company's London headquarters the night before our interview.

Jackson was celebrating Octopus's latest accolades: for the ninth year running, it was named a Which? recommended provider and it won an award for Britain's Most Admired Company.

Jackson's presentation, showing heart-warming stories of the company's squad of in-house social workers helping customers, was given a rapturous reception. His slide show was mildly shambolic, but no one cared.

It's hard not to speculate that his desire to help struggling customers derives from his background.

After his parents divorced, his mother worked in a pub in the evenings and studied during the day, eventually becoming a teacher.

When Greg was ten, she gave him part of the family allowance to buy his own clothes to teach him independence. He used it to buy his first computer instead and learn to write software.

'I darned and patched because I didn't care about clothes,' he says, a disregard that has persisted into adult life.

London listing would boost square mile 

A boyish 54, Jackson doesn't do conventional corporate. He cuts a rumpled figure with uncombed grey hair, baggy jeans, a T-shirt and trainers. Not that he couldn't afford Savile Row, with an estimated net worth of £300 million.

Despite – or maybe because of – his sartorial quirks, he has the ear of top brass at the London Stock Exchange and the Government.

He has long-standing links with the Labour Party and is a board member at the Cabinet Office.

Jackson is not the only one with a lot at stake with Kraken. Ministers are desperate for it to list in London to boost the Square Mile.

The Government has taken a tiny £25 million stake via the British Business Bank, as a gesture to encourage UK investors to back home-grown enterprises.

'Kraken is a true British technology success, and if we want our economy to grow like the US's, we need more great tech companies like it,' Jackson says, though he studiously avoids promising to float the company in London.

'Octopus raised $3 billion (£2.2 billion) in investment. Almost none came from Britain but from Canadian, Australian and Japanese backers. Canadian pensioners will do well from the Kraken float because we have two Canadian pension funds as investors but no British funds,' he says, the indignation audible in his voice.

His championing of UK tech has won him fans, as has his stance on customer service. At Octopus, he says, looking after customers is seen as the basis of the brand, not a cost to be minimised.

Take the social workers, eight in each major office, each looking after about 50 cases. They were hired during the energy crisis when he realised the extent of the troubles some customers faced. 

'People might be alone and ill, haven't paid bills and are about to be thrown out. Sometimes we call and the phone is answered by a child alone in the house,' he says.

'It isn't our job to look after someone for ever but we can get them back into the system.

'It's cheaper to get customer service right. UK companies spend billions dealing with getting it wrong.'

Scottish households 'should get cheaper power' 

Another cause is fixing Britain's energy policy. He says: 'The UK built windfarms off northern Scotland and then we turn them off when it's windy because we didn't build the grid to get the power to where it's needed.

'Scotland has three times more electricity than it needs but not enough grid to export it. We should give households in Scotland and the North cheaper power.'

Others in the industry argue that 'zonal pricing' would unfairly penalise customers and businesses outside the cut-price areas.

Jackson is undeterred: 'If you change how the energy market works you could save £5 billion a year. If it is windy, use wind. If it is sunny, use solar.

'Putin can't do anything about the sun. Not even Trump can.'

Before he founded Octopus, Jackson was involved in an eclectic variety of businesses including mirror manufacturing, coffee shops and software.

The original backing for Octopus Energy came from Simon Rogerson, founder of the private Octopus investment group, who invested £10 million. The head office is littered with furry pink soft-toy cephalopods of all sizes.

'We didn't originally want to call it Octopus. We said: 'No way, it sounds slimy – ugh!'

'But we wanted the investment so a colleague made a cute octopus with short tentacles, big eyes and a smile.'

Jackson's engaging character and the way he has shaken up a highly unpopular sector have won him plenty of admirers.

'Everyone loves Greg,' one City figure told me last week.

Well, not quite everyone.

Doubters include the energy analyst Kathryn Porter, who drew attention to Octopus Energy's £255 million loss for the year to April last year.

She went on to suggest of the flotation plans that the firm 'needs the Kraken proceeds to meet regulatory capital requirements'.

Jackson says: 'We have a £3 billion balance sheet and £1.5 billion in cash. We have an insurance arrangement with Shell. Ofgem is comfortable and has said so publicly.'

So has the lad from Saltburn who scrabbled to buy his first computer really taken on the energy establishment and won?

Will his next achievement be to help revitalise the London stock market with one, maybe even two, blockbuster share listings?

Or will the doubters have their day? The Kraken float will provide the answers.