Superconducting cables, hybrid-electric aircraft and electric freight networks: Unreasonable Impact welcomes 16 ventures across the Americas

• 16 new ventures from across the United States and Canada are joining Unreasonable Impact, many of them building the infrastructure needed to meet surging energy demand and cut operating costs for their business customers.
  
  
• Marking ten years, the partnership between Barclays and Unreasonable Group supports high-growth entrepreneurs through mentoring and support networks.
  
  
• This year’s intake includes ventures focused on powering AI data centres, hybrid-electric aviation, electric freight, recovering critical minerals, and reducing food waste.
  
  

Unreasonable Impact, a strategic partnership between Unreasonable Group and Barclays, has announced the technology-led, high-growth companies selected for its Americas program.

This year’s cohort is delivering more power to AI data centres in a fraction of the space, developing hybrid-electric aircraft, electrifying freight, recovering critical minerals from used batteries, and cutting waste across the food supply chain. Among them are:

• VEIR makes superconducting cables that carry roughly ten times more power than copper of the same size and voltage. For AI data centres, one constraint is how fast electricity can reach them, and VEIR’s systems deliver that power in a fraction of the space.
  
  
• Ampaire is an aerospace company developing hybrid-electric aircraft to transform regional aviation. Based in Long Beach, California, it retrofits existing passenger aircraft with hybrid propulsion to reduce fuel consumption, emissions and operating costs. Its flagship Eco Caravan recharges its battery in flight, so operators need no charging infrastructure.
  
  
• Nevoya is building the operating network that autonomous electric trucks will run on. Today it runs electric trucks in relays through a hub-and-spoke network across California and Texas, and its own software plans the network, schedules charging, and automates dispatch, which is what gets its cost per mile below diesel.
  
  
• Bridge Green Upcycle is an urban mining and energy storage company that recovers critical minerals from used lithium-ion batteries. By recovering the lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and copper already in circulation, it builds domestic supply and reduces reliance on newly mined sources.
  
  
• Strella Biotechnology addresses global food waste by providing real-time environmental monitoring for the produce supply chain, helping growers, shippers, and retailers reduce waste through dynamic shelf-life predictions.
  
  

Collectively, this year’s Americas cohort has raised over $670m to date and employs more than 400 people.

Barclays and Unreasonable share a conviction that high-growth businesses, built on new technology and innovation, are well placed to take on global challenges while creating the jobs of the future. That conviction is what created Unreasonable Impact.

Over the last decade, the program has supported 421 ventures, who have collectively raised over $19 bn in financing and employ more than 35,000 people. Some of their solutions are now used in Barclays’ own operations, and others have been backed through Barclays Climate Ventures.

The partnership combines two things that seldom come together:

• Unreasonable Group finds and curates ambitious growth-stage founders with proven models who are ready to scale.
  
  
• Barclays brings the expertise, networks and institutional reach those founders would struggle to find elsewhere.
  
  

Daniel Epstein, CEO, Unreasonable Group, commented: “What we have created with Barclays over ten years is a community built around the belief that founders working on hard problems deserve the right support around them. The companies joining this year are developing technology-led solutions in power infrastructure, transport, advanced materials, and critical minerals. By working with Barclays and our wider network, we want to make sure they have the mentorship, connections, and market access they need to scale.”

Deborah Goldfarb, Global Head of Citizenship, Barclays, commented: “Barclays’ partnership with Unreasonable has been running since 2016, and over that time we have used our expertise to support hundreds of high-growth, technology-led businesses at different stages of their journey. Through mentorship and access to our networks, we help small and medium-sized companies scale new technologies that can support local economies and meet growing energy demand. I am delighted to welcome these new impactful ventures to the program.”

Tim Heidel, Co-Founder and CEO, VEIR, commented: “We’re honoured to be selected for the Unreasonable Impact Americas program and excited by its focus on later-stage, growth-focused companies. VEIR is working to create an entirely new category of superconducting power infrastructure for data centres, at a moment when access to power is becoming one of the defining constraints on AI growth. Joining this community gives us the opportunity to work alongside Barclays and other ambitious leaders as we accelerate deployment of superconducting data centres.”

The 16 companies joining the 2026 Unreasonable Impact Americas program include:

• Alpha Grid - Making EV charging infrastructure financeable by analysing data across power systems, real estate, and transportation to forecast how a site will perform, then structuring financial products that turn that forecast into predictable returns for charging and energy storage projects.
  
  
• Ampaire - Developing hybrid-electric aircraft to transform regional aviation, retrofitting existing passenger aircraft with hybrid propulsion to reduce fuel consumption, emissions and operating costs. Its flagship Eco Caravan recharges its battery in flight, so operators need no charging infrastructure.
  
  
• Ayrton Energy - Making hydrogen easy to move and store. Its liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) technology binds hydrogen into a liquid handled at ordinary temperature and pressure, so it travels through the fuel infrastructure that already exists.
  
  
• Bridge Green Upcycle - Recovering critical minerals from used lithium-ion batteries, using a proprietary AI platform to assess each battery’s remaining useful life and determine whether it should be repurposed as grid energy storage or processed to extract its critical minerals.
  
  
• Commons - Helping people use their money to shape the life and world they want, through an app that makes it easy to track and manage the impact of their financial choices, including budgeting, emissions tracking, and offsetting.
  
  
• Ebb Carbon - Partnering with desalination and mining operators to convert brine into additional freshwater, valuable minerals and chemicals, and alkaline seawater that permanently captures CO₂ while restoring ocean ecosystems.
  
  
• Evercloak - Using graphene-based membranes to cut the energy needed for cooling. Its EverDROP technology removes moisture from the air efficiently, cutting HVAC energy use by up to 50%.
  
  
• Geoship - Designing climate-resilient homes using bioceramic material science. Inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic design principles, it manufactures dome homes designed to reduce housing costs, energy consumption, and emissions
• InventWood - Transforming wood at the molecular level with its flagship product, SUPERWOOD, a building material stronger than steel that retains wood’s natural warmth, texture, and workability.
  
  
• it’s electric - Providing scalable curbside EV charging for cities by partnering with property owners to unlock existing electrical supply from adjacent buildings, enabling zero-cost installation of Level-2 charging posts.
  
  
• Nevoya - Building the operating network that autonomous electric trucks will run on, running electric trucks in relays through a hub-and-spoke network across California and Texas, with its own software planning the network, scheduling charging, and automating dispatch.
  
  
• Rodatherm Energy - Generating clean, round-the-clock power from heat deep underground. Its patented Waterless Geothermal Systems circulate a specialized fluid through a sealed loop that never touches the rock, driving a turbine directly.
  
  
• South 8 Technologies - Replacing the liquid inside lithium-ion battery cells with liquefied gas. Its patented LiGas electrolyte enables cold performance down to -60°C, improved safety, faster charging, and longer cycle life while remaining compatible with existing battery manufacturing infrastructure.
  
  
• Strella Biotechnology - Addressing global food waste with real-time environmental monitoring for the produce supply chain, using proprietary biosensor technology to predict produce maturity, automate ripening processes, and optimize inventory management.
  
  
• Talusag - Providing modular green ammonia systems that enable local production of low-cost fertilizers and renewable fuels from renewable energy, water, and air.
  
  
• VEIR - Making superconducting cables that carry roughly ten times more power than copper of the same size and voltage, delivering power to AI data centers in a fraction of the space, installed behind the meter on the operator’s own side of the grid connection.