# Black Diamond Ventures

> Black Diamond Ventures is a VC fund backing Biotechnology and Medical. See 14 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Glendale, United States
- Total investments: 14
- Last investment: Dec 2025
- Lead investor: 21%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/black-diamond-ventures
- X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/bdventures1
- Website: http://www.bdventures.com

Black Diamond Ventures is a VC fund in Glendale focused on Biotechnology and Medical. At Black Diamond Ventures, we leverage our unique capabilities and expertise in order to find promising founders and companies for our investors. We draw upon a track record of success spanning over the past two decades, and upon the collective strengths of our accomplished team.We find the most promising founders and technological innovations,and we match them to our investors to grow their wealth while also providing entrepreneurial guidance for the disruptive products of tomorrow. We bring a wealth of entrepreneurial and background expertise - our strengths include our commitment and dedication to building relationships among investors and their investments. BDV has offices in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, and Orange County.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Black Diamond Ventures. Shizune tracks 6 team members at Black Diamond Ventures. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/black-diamond-ventures?utm_source=investor_profile

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Biotechnology | 4 | 29% |
| Medical | 3 | 21% |
| Software | 3 | 21% |
| Analytics | 3 | 21% |
| Biopharma | 3 | 21% |

40 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 2 | 14% |
| Series A | 2 | 14% |
| Series C | 2 | 14% |
| Series D | 2 | 14% |
| Funding Round | 2 | 14% |

8 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 12 | 86% |
| Japan | 1 | 7% |

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Christopher Lucas | Founder and Managing Director | 1 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/christopher-lucas |
| Ana Quintana | Managing Partner | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ana-quintana |
| John Kispert | Managing Partner | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/john-h-kispert |
| Rob Ukropina | Venture Partner | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/rob-ukropina |
| Scott Becker | Venture Partner | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/scott-becker-4 |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Lyric Bio | LYRIC BIO develops biomanufacturing platforms for human donor-sourced therapeutics. The company focuses initially on increasing availability of intravenous immunoglobulin, using bioreactors that incorporate high-resolution, laser-printed 3D tissues originating from research at Prellis Biologics. Its approach integrates cell culture systems, processdesign, and scalable hardware to expand throughput while maintaining product consistency. Capabilities include the design of bioreactor components, process monitoring, and quality controls aligned to plasma-derived medicines. The goal is to reduce supply shortages for essential immunoglobulin therapies and create a path to broader access for donor-based biologics. | $6.6M | Seed | Dec 02, 2025 |  |
| Ares Materials | Ares Materials uses an innovative chemistry platform and artificial intelligence to provide customized solutions for the emerging needs of the display industry |  | Series A | Nov 01, 2022 |  |
| Prellis Biologics | Prellis Biologics is building human tissues for drug development, and ultimately, developing human organs for transplantation. Bioprinting vascularized human tissue and organs will revolutionize healthcare. Prellis Biologics'​ technology leverages massive gains in print speed and resolution to break the microvasculature barrier.The companywas founded in 2016 and is based in San Francisco, California. | $35M | Series C | Aug 10, 2022 |  |
| Engage3 | Engage develops a cloud-based platform that provides product and pricing data and insights. Through data science and analytics, the company assists retailers and brands in improving their pricing performance. The company was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Davis, California. | $40M | Series D | Dec 02, 2021 |  |
| Ares Materials | Ares Materials uses an innovative chemistry platform and artificial intelligence to provide customized solutions for the emerging needs of the display industry |  | Series A | Nov 01, 2021 |  |
| Strateos | Strateos automates chemistry, biology, and tissue analysis into closed-loop robotic labs that accelerate drug discovery programs. Through a combination of best-in-class robotics and control systems, advanced software for imaging and analytics, and remote cloud laboratories, they enable pharmaceutical partners to more rapidly and efficientlydiscover new drug candidates.Born of a merger between Transcriptic and 3Scan, Strateos combines the strengths of those companies to amplify their impact and accelerate drug discovery. Transcriptic developed the first robotic cloud laboratory platform for on-demand life science research, which is currently in use at several top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. 3Scan combined automation, machine learning and computer vision to extract spatial data from tissue samples and create detailed 3D representations as well as quantitative analysis of complex anatomical structures. Now these two portfolios will be combined to offer a suite of technologies for accelerating drug discovery and early development.By expressing life science methods as data, infrastructure virtualization will become possible. "Science-as-a-Service" will power the next generation of discovery, driven by huge efficiencies of both time and money.Transcriptic was founded in 2012 to create a better way to get lab work done. Tired of spending endless hours at the bench pretending to be slow, error-prone robots, they set out to build a modern solution to the day-to-day process of wet lab biology.Drawing on deep computer science and electrical engineering backgrounds in addition to life science, Strateos was born: a meticulously optimized, technology-enabled remote lab. Using state-of-the-art automation and control technology, and an emphasis on user experience and usability, they are working on building a stark contrast to the long, complicated sales process, high prices, and slow turnarounds of traditional CROs.They are working hard to build a great company that can be a true partner for your lab for a long time, progressively enabling ever greater levels of productivity and efficiency. They are scientists building for scientists. | $56.1M | Series B | Jun 08, 2021 |  |
| Atonarp | Atonarp combines electronics and data processing algorithms for chemical composition analysis. Its Smart Spectrometer will enable manufacturers of gas-composition analysis instruments, such as field-based gas chromatography equipment, to achieve breakthrough improvements in cost, size, accuracy, and maintenance-free operation without the need forexpensive carrier gases. | $50M | Series D | May 18, 2021 |  |
| Finicast | Finicast provides business financial planning and analysis software. Finicast software assists FP&A teams, financial analysts, and businesses in developing detailed and scalable financial forecasts, as well as financial management and tracking solutions. | $8.7M | Seed | Mar 30, 2021 |  |
| Alveo Technologies | Alveo Technologies is changing the world by applying cutting edge advances in sensing, microfluidics, and bioassays to create the next-generation of disease and personal care diagnostic devices.Their innovative products connect and empower consumers, healthcare professionals and treatment providers with the ability to know sooner, act faster, andmake better-informed decisions. Advanced diagnostics clear the path to more personalized medicine and better outcomes. | $16M | Venture - Series Unknown | Mar 29, 2021 |  |
| Berkeley Lights | Berkeley Lights is a provider of research and development services using micro-droplet technology intended to fundamentally change the way biological processes are done. The company's services revolutionize how scientists and researchers study the interaction of cells and transform and accelerate cellular therapies, enabling clients to meetthe demands for cell-based processes in biotherapeutic discovery and development, cellular therapy manufacturing, synthetic biology, ag-bio, and other fields. | $95M | Series E | Oct 10, 2018 |  |

10 of 14 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Lucas Venture Group](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/lucas-venture-group) — VC Fund, 5 deals together
- [SOSV](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/sosv) — VC Fund, 4 deals together
- [Arrowroot Capital Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/arrowroot-capital-management) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Celesta Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/celesta-capital) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [DCVC](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/data-collective) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Draper Associates](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/draper-associates-2) — VC Fund, 2 deals together

## Similar investors

### Similar stage
- [Antler](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antler-be9c) — VC Fund
- [Alumni Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alumni-ventures-group) — VC Fund
- [Right Side Capital Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/right-side-capital-management) — VC Fund

## FAQ

### What does Black Diamond Ventures invest in?

Black Diamond Ventures invests primarily in Biotechnology, Medical and Software startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 14 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### How do I contact Black Diamond Ventures?

Public channels for Black Diamond Ventures include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.

### Who are the partners at Black Diamond Ventures?

The team at Black Diamond Ventures includes Christopher Lucas (Founder and Managing Director), Ana Quintana (Managing Partner) and John Kispert (Managing Partner), among 6 team members tracked by Shizune. The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

# About Shizune
Shizune.co is an investor database. Core features:
- 48,091 startup investors (angels, VCs, accelerators, and others)
- Email, phone, LinkedIn (for intros), socials, and other contact data
- Updated daily from public funding news
- CSV and Excel export

The User can access the full database FOR FREE after signing up: shizune.co