Gravita launches to challenge traditional accounting industry consolidators
Gravita today launches as a new challenger brand in the accounting industry with ambitions to become the leading tech-enabled full-service partner for established UK SMEs. Backed by Tenzing, Gravita is significantly investing in building a new kind of consolidator that combines the best of breed from high-quality professional services firms to support ambitious SME leaders in realising their growth goals. Gravita currently includes experienced and trusted specialists from Jeffreys Henry, Arram Berlyn Gardner (ABG) and Propel (acquired from Deloitte).
Gravita, inspired by space exploration and new frontiers, reflects the Group’s innovative yet pragmatic approach to working with clients. This concept of space and discovery enforces how Gravita expresses modernity and ambition as well as trust and excellence. Gravita’s vision is to provide a customer-centric solution that combines its team of forward-thinking, strategic experts with intuitive technology to be the tech-enabled accountancy firm of choice for the SME market. It is building a group known for its values-driven culture and consistent excellence to support SMEs with any financial worries, whether relating to resource or significantly complex business challenges. Clients will benefit from access to a full-service firm with trusted, high calibre specialists all under one brand offering audit, tax, accounts, financial outsourcing, payroll and advisory.
The accounting industry is currently undergoing a period of transformation. The Big Four firms are turning their backs on SMEs and in recent years, some have drastically reduced the services they offer to small and medium businesses. In September, Gravita acquired Propel from Deloitte to provide clients with easy access to full-service finance, compliance and specialist advisory offerings under one brand without compromising on quality. Gravita offers a much more collaborative approach to consolidation in the market than other traditional industry consolidators by actively seeking like-minded partners. By building a shared future collectively, with every firm operating under one brand as one team, Gravita believes it will create a best of breed Group that teams want to be a part of and clients want to work with.
SMEs are the backbone of the UK economy who will play a pivotal role in underpinning the pace at which the country recovers post-pandemic. Having pragmatic SME focussed solutions with access to depth and breadth of service in one place, will be key in helping them to adapt and survive in the current economic climate. Gravita is the perfect partner for a fast-growing business who has more sophisticated needs than a small practice can provide, yet is overlooked by some of the Big Four accounting firms because of size or price.
Gravita CEO Caroline Plumb OBE said: “Our ambition is to build the UK’s leading tech-enabled accounting firm focussed on SMEs, and the launch of Gravita marks a key milestone in our growth journey. Accountancy is an increasingly crowded sector, and the industry landscape has been shifting for some time, with a new wave of consolidators entering the fray. At Gravita, we take a highly collaborative view on consolidation in the market and have a carefully considered approach to finding the right firms who share our future vision.”
Christian Hamilton, co-founder of Tenzing, added: “We are delighted to see the launch of Gravita as a new challenger brand in the accounting industry. At Tenzing, we have always been strong supporters of continued innovation and evolution in the sector and welcome a forward-thinking, next generation firm who want to disrupt the current status quo. This is a significant step in Gravita’s strategy to transform how small and medium businesses receive accounting services and through its approach of leveraging technology to meet evolving client needs, it offers a unique proposition in the market.”
