The electric grid runs on spreadsheets. Not the literal wires and transformers, of course—those are governed by physics and regulation. But the planning of all that infrastructure? Still trapped in static Excel files and PowerPoint decks scattered across departments like digital confetti.
Squid, a two-person startup barely seven weeks old, thinks a browser can fix that. More importantly, one of the world's largest grid operators just bet on them to prove it.
On February 11, National Grid DSO in the UK flipped the switch on an interactive FlexPortal powered by Squid's platform—a tool that pulls flexibility market data out of spreadsheets and into a live, shared workspace visible to all participants. The deployment happened in 50 days. For context, enterprise infrastructure software typically measures implementation timelines in quarters, sometimes years.
That velocity matters when roughly 2,300 gigawatts of generation and storage projects sit waiting in US interconnection queues alone, and median wait times hover around five years for projects that eventually get built. The grid planning process itself has become a bottleneck.
What Lives in the Browser
Squid's pitch centers on something deceptively simple: a single, version-controlled model of the electric grid that exists entirely in a web browser rather than locked inside desktop software. Substations, transmission lines, distribution assets—all of it rendered in a collaborative space where teams can attach evidence and assumptions directly to model objects.
Think of it as Git for grid infrastructure, minus the command-line anxiety.
The platform handles repeatable workflows for planning, connections, and network changes, with the explicit goal of keeping decisions consistent and progress visible. According to the company's Y Combinator launch post from late January, today's grid planning typically scatters models across specialist tools while supporting evidence lives in separate documents. Version confusion and slow iteration cycles follow predictably.
Doerte Schneemann, Head of Flexibility Markets at National Grid DSO, captured the frustration in a quote featured on Squid's homepage: "For too long flex data lived in spreadsheets. Not anymore!"
The FlexPortal lets participants explore dispatch patterns, participation data, and tender outcomes interactively—a transparency push that arrives just ahead of April 2026 delivery milestones. Whether it meaningfully accelerates decision-making or simply relocates the bottleneck remains to be tested at scale.
The December-to-February Arc
George Kolokotronis, one of Squid's co-founders, posted on LinkedIn that the company is "less than 50 days old and is already working [with] one of the largest grids globally." The UK entity, Squid Labs Ltd, incorporated on December 22, 2025. National Grid's FlexPortal went live February 11.
Do the math—that's 51 days from incorporation to production deployment.
Enterprise software doesn't usually work that way. Procurement alone can stretch longer. But the browser-native architecture appears to sidestep familiar friction points: no desktop installations across hundreds of workstations, no protracted integration cycles with legacy on-premise systems, no IT security review marathons over VPN configurations.
Octopus Energy also appears among "Trusted by" logos on Squid's site, though the company hasn't detailed that relationship publicly. Both co-founders worked at Octopus previously, where they contributed to Kraken—an AI-enabled utility platform recently spun out at an $8.65 billion valuation. They know the customer from the inside.
The Pressure Building Upstream
The timing aligns with mounting pressure on grid infrastructure worldwide, though "mounting" undersells it. Berkeley Lab reported that the US interconnection backlog grew to approximately 2,600 gigawatts of proposed generation and storage by the end of 2023. The 2024 update showed roughly 2,300 gigawatts of active capacity still queued.
For scale: that's multiple times the entire existing US generating capacity, waiting.
In the UK, flexibility markets are scaling rapidly. National Grid DSO's Market Gateway registered over 200,000 assets by October 2025, more than doubling year-over-year. Meanwhile, regulators warn that 140 proposed UK data centers could require up to 50 gigawatts of new capacity—potentially doubling peak electricity demand.
Grid planning software hasn't kept pace, and perhaps that's unsurprising. Traditional tools like DIgSILENT PowerFactory and ETAP were built for simulation and analysis, not collaborative decision-making across planning, connections, and asset strategy teams. Newer platforms from GE Vernova (GridOS) and Schneider Electric (One Digital Grid) offer AI-enabled orchestration but still lean heavily on desktop-first architectures developed in an earlier computing era.
Squid's argument is that planning needs a shared workspace more than another simulation engine. The company seeks "design partners at grid operators (planning, connections, modelling, GIS, asset strategy)" according to its YC launch, emphasizing workflow standardization and collaboration over raw computational horsepower.
Whether utilities agree in practice—meaning budget and procurement decisions—is the test ahead.
Who's Building It
Co-founder Conor Jones started as a power systems engineer at National Grid, with subsequent stints at BCG and Octopus Energy. George Kolokotronis served as ex-Head of Technology at Octopus Energy, with prior roles at AWS and an engineering degree from Cambridge. Both cite building "what we wished existed" during their years inside utilities and energy tech companies.
It's a familiar founder story: domain expertise meets technical chops, plus enough frustration to leave comfortable jobs.
The company operates out of London and San Francisco with US (Delaware) and UK entities. Squid lists GDPR, SOC 2 Type II, and ISO 27001 compliance on its homepage, though it hasn't published public audit reports. The team of two is now hiring a founding engineer in London, plus "builders" beyond that initial role, according to a careers page directing inquiries to [email protected].
Pricing and business model details remain undisclosed. That opacity is standard for enterprise software at this stage, though it complicates assessment of go-to-market viability.
The Incumbent Question
Squid enters a market where established players hold decades-long utility relationships and substantial installed bases. GE Vernova launched GridOS for Distribution in early February 2026, touting AI-enabled planning and orchestration. Schneider Electric's One Digital Grid Platform integrates planning, operations, and asset management. Neara offers 3D network modeling with automated LiDAR classification.
The browser-native, collaborative angle may provide differentiation—most incumbents evolved from desktop simulation tools built for individual engineers rather than cross-functional teams. Squid positions itself as workflow infrastructure that sits alongside rather than replaces existing analysis tools. Version control, provenance tracking, repeatable processes.
Whether that's enough to displace or complement entrenched vendors remains genuinely uncertain. But the National Grid deployment offers proof that utilities will move quickly on new platforms when they solve workflow pain, not just technical problems. And flexibility markets plus interconnection backlogs aren't slowing down.
Perhaps spreadsheets aren't the right tool for planning terawatts of new capacity. Perhaps they never were.
What 50 Days Buys
The company says it's looking for more design partners. Based on how fast National Grid moved, some utilities might be curious what 50 days can get them.
It's a sales pitch wrapped in a case study, but the underlying question resonates: How much of grid planning's slowness stems from genuinely hard technical constraints versus accumulated process debt and fragmented tooling? If a two-person startup can deploy production infrastructure in seven weeks, what does that say about the systems they're replacing?
The answer will emerge over the next few quarters as more utilities either adopt the platform or decide the collaboration benefits don't justify switching costs. Grid infrastructure is famously conservative—for good reason, given the stakes. But conservative doesn't necessarily mean slow, and Squid's early velocity suggests at least some appetite for faster planning cycles.
The spreadsheets aren't going anywhere soon. But maybe they'll finally have some competition.
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Squid did not respond to requests for comment on funding, pricing, or customer pipeline beyond National Grid by publication time.
