What the business is
Spherics was a UK carbon accounting platform for SMEs to understand and reduce their environmental impact
The bet
That carbon accounting could be automated by ingesting a company's accounting software and matching transactions, no audits or spreadsheets needed
Starting capital
£1.25M in equity from angel investors plus £300K in grants; sale terms undisclosed
How it started
Founded in Bristol, Spherics built a platform that ingests data from a company's accounting software, matches transactions and applies emission factors to procurement categories to estimate a carbon footprint — aimed at SMEs too small for consultants.
What happened
It raised £1.25M from angels plus £300K in grants and competed with better-funded players — Normative, Plan A, Klimametrix, Persefoni, Planetly — in a heating climate-tech market. Sage, which had pledged to support SMEs to net zero and had picked up Bristol's Brightpearl in 2021, acquired Spherics for an undisclosed sum.
How it ended up
Sage acquired Spherics; terms undisclosed. Sage said combining Spherics with its digital network would connect businesses with customer and supplier emissions data for collaborative climate action across value chains.
What has to be true
Carbon accounting built on accounting data needs no new workflows — the data plumbing already exists in every SME's books.
SMEs were too small for consultants, so an automated estimate was the only price point that could reach them.
Sage's net-zero pledge needed a product, not a promise; buying a working team was faster than building one.
A heated carbon-accounting market meant small startups would be consolidated by accounting platforms rather than grow alone.
What can be applied
A startup that automates the measurement hides inside the software every customer already runs — the natural exit for climate tools aimed at small business.
Aftermath
As of 12 October 2022 the deal had closed on undisclosed terms, with Spherics' software set to combine with Sage's digital network to surface customer and supplier emissions data across value chains. No integration results were reported.
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