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Founders: Alex Wright-Gladstein
Motto/Mission: Climate-friendly retirement savings for all: Sphere makes it easy for 401(k) participants and companies to align their retirement savings with a clean energy future.
Year Founded: 2021
Stage: Pre-Seed
Location: San Diego, California (Remote)
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Climate Capital: What made you want to solve this problem?
Alex: I have been passionate about turning around climate change since I was a kid. I went to MIT for an MBA as an excuse to meet people across campus investing in climate tech, and that’s how I met the inventors of the first processor chip to communicate using light. We spun that technology out in 2015 to form Ayar Labs, and we’re cutting the energy use of AI in half by using light to move data between chips. We’ve grown that company to a >$1B valuation, but back in 2017 we started offering a retirement plan to our employees, and it took over three years to get a single climate-friendly option on that plan. That means that, as a climate tech company, we were requiring our employees to invest in the fossil fuel industry for over three years.
It turns out there are $45 trillion in retirement savings in the U.S. alone — and over 99% of Americans have no option to invest in a climate-friendly way. Over 80% of us worry about climate change, but we are unknowingly funneling $1 trillion into fossil-fuel companies — propping up a sector that has had the worst long-term returns of any sector of the economy for the past two decades. At the same time, the largest asset managers vote against nearly all climate-related shareholder proposals, reinforcing short-term incentives that harm both savers and the planet.
Once I understood how deeply these structural misalignments lock in emissions, I realized I had to help fix the system. I founded Sphere to make climate-friendly investing easy and accessible to everyone — and to bring real scale to a market dominated by incumbents. As a VC-backed public benefit corporation already live on the biggest 401(k) platforms, Sphere can make climate-aligned investing the simple, automatic choice for millions.
When we shift defaults, we shift trillions — and that’s how we change the future.
Climate Capital: What are you building?
Alex: Sphere makes climate-friendly investing available to everyone, by making it easy for employers to offer climate-friendly options in retirement plans, and making climate-friendly the default for those saving for retirement.
Wealthy individuals and institutions have already stopped investing in the fossil fuel industry, often citing worrying economic factors as a driving force for decisions, including the Rockefeller Foundation, the Church of England, and the Harvard Endowment.
We are democratizing access to this common-sense decision, offering high-quality, affordable, fiduciarily-sound funds that exclude fossil fuels and vote for the planet. The Sphere 500 Fossil-Free Index tracks the Top 500 biggest US companies and excludes fossil fuel companies. Unlike most, Sphere votes its shares for the planet — pushing companies toward climate-aligned governance rather than reinforcing the status quo.
Our AtmoSphere platform quantifies the climate impact of moving investments – which can have a bigger impact than installing solar panels or driving an electric car.
Sphere is a VC-backed public benefit corporation that brings the potential for scale to an industry dominated by big players. Sphere is already on the biggest 401(k) platforms. When millions of people gain easy, automatic access to climate-friendly retirement investing, capital will shift at scale.
Climate Capital: What is next?
Alex:
We’ve spent the last 4 years getting on all major 401(k) platforms, including Schwab, Vanguard & Fidelity — now we’re on 250+ plans, have $62M under management, and are seeing 4x YoY growth.
As of September 2025, Sphere as SPFEX is now on Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, and most other brokerage platforms. If you have an IRA, Solo 401(k), or brokerage account with either platform, you can now search for the Sphere 500 Climate Fund using the ticker SPFEX to invest with Sphere through your existing account. This milestone brings us one step closer to our mission of making climate-friendly investing accessible to everyone, everywhere.
We launched the Actors Retire Big Oil campaign in June in partnership with the nonprofit Stand.earth. Over 500 actors including Mark Ruffalo and Jane Fonda signed an open letter to the SAG-Producers Pension managers asking them to move $200M out of fossil fuel investments. The campaign has reached over 200M views with the message that you can have a bigger impact on climate by moving your retirement savings than by installing solar, driving electric, or never flying again. Here’s some coverage of Sphere in NPR, Bloomberg, the NYTimes, and the WSJ.
Sphere opened its most recent investment round to its community via Wefunder and raised $2M from 300 investors.
We’re scaling from hundreds of plans to thousands, expanding our fund lineup, and building our AtmoSphere wealth platform. We are actively raising a $5M seed round to meet the demand we’re facing now that our product is on all the major 401(k) platforms and steadily scale our sales, engineering, and customer support teams to help shift billions of dollars into climate-aligned investing faster.
Climate Capital: What are the core elements of the culture you are building at your company?
Alex: Sphere is deeply mission-driven, results-driven, and collaborative—we believe in fixing the financial system from within, we celebrate progress as a team, and we anchor every decision in both fiduciary rigor and climate impact.
Climate Capital: What are the key challenges as you scale your company?
Alex: Our biggest challenges are navigating a complex 401(k) ecosystem built around incumbents, overcoming industry misconceptions about sustainable investing and fossil-fuel divestment, and moving quickly while maintaining the trust and credibility required to serve fiduciaries and customers. Because the retirement system is relationship-driven and structurally optimized for the largest asset managers, it takes sustained education and partnership to show advisors and plan sponsors that they can offer a truly climate-aligned option without sacrificing fiduciary standards. At the same time, we’re working to meet the momentum created by employees nationwide who are asking their employers for fossil-free options. Balancing that urgency with the deliberate pace of institutional adoption is challenging — but it’s also what makes this work meaningful. Every step forward proves that a more transparent, climate-aligned retirement system is not only possible, but already taking shape.
Climate Capital: What have you learned that you want to share with other founders?
Alex: I’ve learned that solving systemic climate problems requires patience, partnerships, and relentless clarity — and that when you pair a mission people believe in with an irresistible product that truly meets market standards and customer needs, doors open that once looked impossible. Building Sphere has also shown me that systems change happens when you meet people where they are: both the “heart followers” driven by climate impact and the “rule followers” motivated by fiduciary rigor. In a 401(k) ecosystem shaped by incumbents and long-standing relationships, I’ve learned that trust is our most valuable currency. And perhaps the most important takeaway is that persistence pays off. The industry may move slowly by design, but employees across the country are moving fast, asking for climate-aligned options. Holding those two realities at once — and building a company that can serve both — has taught me to balance urgency with steadiness. Ultimately, when you give people a clear and practical path to align their retirement savings with their values, they step into that power, and real change becomes possible.
Climate Capital: How can the broader climate community help you on your mission?
Alex:
We are building on our current momentum to raise $5M to continue to expand access to climate-friendly funds and make key growth hires. If you are an investor who invests in seed rounds of climate and fintech companies, please reach out to us directly.
We are looking to speak to employers who want to offer climate-friendly retirement options, and advisors and fiduciaries who are ready to bring a best-in-class fossil-free index fund into their client lineups. ICYMI, the Sphere 500 Climate Fund as SPFEX is now on the Fidelity, Schwab, and Vanguard brokerage platforms. If you have an IRA, Solo 401(k), or brokerage account with them or others, you can now invest with Sphere directly through your existing account. If your employer offers a retirement plan, you can ask your HR team to add Sphere as SPFFX to your plan here: https://www.oursphere.org/how-it-works/email-your-hr. This milestone brings us one step closer to making climate-friendly investing accessible to everyone, everywhere.
If you want to learn more, visit https://www.oursphere.org/!