On fusion: Letting the story out of the lab

If there’s one thing we know about Julie, our CEO, it’s how excited she is about fusion. (Don’t bring it up unless you’ve got time to really get into it.)

But it is true that fusion teams are ready to be more famous. The number of companies in the industry’s annual survey has doubled - now at 56 - since 2021 (Fusion Industry Association). As with quantum, it’s now less about whether the science is viable, and more about who can make people understand their approach.

First Light Fusion is one of the companies at this point. Ahead of their next fundraise, they chose our Narrative Foundation solution to align their story for investors, engineers and future hires. This then became the basis for a tactical brand and collateral refresh for UK Fusion Week.

On craft: Turning moonshots into stories

This quarter we made two films about some of the most ambitious work happening anywhere: WeatherNext 3 for Google DeepMind, and our Project Suncatcher series for Google Research.

WeatherNext 3 is a global weather model that can make forecasts every hour of the day, at up to 5km resolution, powering forecasts across Gemini, Search and Maps, and helping us navigate the threats of ever more extreme and changeable weather.

Project Suncatcher is Google’s moonshot to put solar-powered AI compute in space: satellites carrying AI chips, working together as orbiting data centers and talking to each other via laser.

We’ve made many films about projects this ambitious: decoding the breakthroughs, getting to know the researchers, working through how to turn technical concepts into cohesive episodes and engaging imagery, but having a front-row seat to the brilliance behind these projects never gets old.

On quantum: Science in a sentence is hard

This autumn our strategy team spent time with early-stage quantum companies at QAI Ventures in Switzerland and then at Quantum World Congress in Washington, D.C., where we ran a workshop we call Scaling Innovation.

The goal of the workshop is easy to say, less easy to achieve: write one sentence about your technology that an investor can understand and a scientist can’t dispute.

Why would these brilliant people spend a whole afternoon with us answering this riddle? While the investment in quantum is big, it’s not going to go to everyone. Quantum start-ups raised $12.6 billion last year, but about 60% of it went to ten deals (McKinsey Quantum Technology Monitor 2026). If investors, governments and future hires are committing to a ten-year roadmap, they need a story they can understand and repeat.

On pasta: Across the Pond’s Supper Club

A lot of our work is about making complicated things feel human, and that includes everything outside of the work too.

Across the Pond’s Supper Club is a dinner we host in London, San Francisco, NYC, and anywhere else we happen to be. We invite a small group of friends and partners from across different brands and disciplines for conversation about business, marketing and anything else that comes up. 

During SF Tech Week we hosted friends from Apple, Amazon, Listen Labs and Circle and had a fantastic evening at Flour & Water’s test kitchen. When most of us spend our days thinking about briefs, roadmaps and deadlines, this in person time feels so valuable. 

Until next time

We hope there’s value in our view across sectors and challenges that don’t always surface in our project conversations together. If any of this sounds familiar to you - wrestling with a narrative, or needing to turn breakthroughs into stories, get in touch!

The Across the Pond Team