NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Thirteen entrepreneurs working to solve some of the world’s most complex challenges officially launched the third annual Unreasonable Impact Americas program today. Unreasonable Impact is an innovative partnership between Barclays and Unreasonable Group. The global partnership helps scale high-growth ventures addressing key global challenges with the aim of creating the jobs of tomorrow. Over the course of three years, Unreasonable Impact will have worked with over 100 of the world’s leading entrepreneurs from the UK and Europe, the Americas, and Asia Pacific. Unreasonable Impact will support them with the resources, mentorship, and the global network needed to rapidly scale their companies and in turn create new employment opportunities across targeted geographies.
Each program is a concentrated two-week gathering designed to support growth-stage ventures with bespoke advice and guidance from a global community of mentors and industry specialists, including experts from Barclays. The participating companies have each been selected to participate based on their potential to create at least 500 jobs in the green economy within the next five years.
“Barclays wants to help create jobs in sectors that are important to the global economy and benefit society as a whole. This is our third year and we are excited about the next stage of the program and helping these new ventures grow,” said Joe McGrath, Global Head of Banking at Barclays.
During the two-week intensive program, the entrepreneurs will receive mentorship and advice from business experts and serial entrepreneurs, including Tom Chi, former head of experience at Google X; Dan Ariely, James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and New York Times best selling author; Betty Hudson, President at Hudson & Associates and former Chief Communications Officer at National Geographic; and Ted Roosevelt, Chair of Barclays Cleantech Initiative, among other senior leaders from across Barclays. The ventures range from Zero Mass Water, whose revolutionary technology is making drinking water from sunlight and air, to Inventys, developing a CO₂ marketplace using second-generation carbon capture technology at half the cost of solvent-based systems.
Daniel Epstein, founder and CEO of Unreasonable Group, said, “Since launching Unreasonable Impact, we have supported some of the world’s most exciting and impactful ventures to grow faster and create nearly 7,000 new jobs. We’re incredibly excited to bring this new group of ground-breaking ventures into the global portfolio and support them on their journey of delivering high-impact, rapidly scaling solutions to problems the world previously thought were impossible to solve.”
For more information, visit http://www.unreasonableimpact.com.
The participating companies include:
- Astraea: Building the world’s most advanced machine learning platform for Earth-observing satellite data and geospatial information.
- Cambrian Innovation: Providing distributed installations to extract resources like clean energy and clean water from wastewater.
- Ecor: Providing the technology to produce ECOR, an advanced green building material that uniquely enables the circular economy.
- Evrnu: Recycling cotton garment waste to create premium, renewable fiber for the creation of new clothing.
- Hydrostor: Providing grid-scale electricity storage by storing renewable energy as compressed air.
- Inventys: Building the CO2 marketplace via breakthrough carbon capture technology.
- Kuli Kuli Foods: Improving nutrition and farmer income through delicious moringa superfood products.
- Natel Energy: Enabling climate resilient hydropower while maintaining the health of watershed ecosystems and the communities who surround them.
- Qnergy: Providing renewable, reliable, resilient power through Free-Piston Stirling Engine technology.
- Stony Creek Colors: Using bio-based textile dyes to bring sustainability to farmers while empowering fashion brands with transparency.
- Vital Vio: Reinventing disinfection to safely and continuously kill germs, mold, and fungi with the flip of a light switch through advanced LED technology.
- Zero Mass Water: Making drinking water an unlimited resource with SOURCE, a set of panels that make water from air.
- ZincFive: Delivering nickel-zinc based energy storage and delivery solutions for mission critical industries.
About Barclays
Barclays is a transatlantic consumer and wholesale bank offering products and services across personal, corporate and investment banking, credit cards and wealth management, with a strong presence in our two home markets of the UK and the US. With over 325 years of history and expertise in banking, Barclays operates in over 40 countries and employs approximately 80,000 people. Barclays moves, lends, invests and protects money for customers and clients worldwide. For further information about Barclays, please visit our website www.home.barclays
About Unreasonable Group
Unreasonable’s mission is to drive resources to and break down barriers for entrepreneurs solving key global challenges (i.e. ensuring renewable energy reaches the 1.3 billion people currently without electricity, reimagining the future of healthcare, or addressing the global unemployment crisis). Through running worldwide accelerator programmes, a globally oriented private equity fund, an extensive network of over 300 serial business leaders as mentors, and advanced storytelling and media activities, Unreasonable is designed to exclusively support entrepreneurs positioned to solve society's toughest problems. For more information about Unreasonable, please visit http://www.unreasonablegroup.com. Unreasonable Impact is an innovative multi-year partnership between Barclays and Unreasonable Group to launch the world’s first international network of accelerators focused on scaling up entrepreneurial solutions that will help employ thousands worldwide in the emerging green economy.
Since 2016, Unreasonable Impact has hosted programs each year in three distinct markets: the Americas, UK and Europe, and Asia Pacific. To date, the 70-plus ventures that comprise the global cohort operate in over 180 countries, have raised over $1.3bn in funding, have generated over $1.1bn in revenue, and support more than 18,000 jobs.
