Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
DIAMOND FOUNDRY SPENT the last three years quietly working on an ambitious project.
The US startup, created by Nanosolar founder Martin Roscheisen, wanted to grow “real” diamonds in a lab. Unlike synthetic diamonds, these would be hatched from a sliver of a natural, mined diamond as the substrate.
After two years of experiments with failed diamond-growing reactors, Roscheisen’s Santa Clara-based team says it cracked the code. Now the company claims to be able to grow hundreds of diamonds that are up to nine carats in just two weeks in a lab.
The breakthrough was enough to convince ten billionaires and members of Silicon Valley tech royalty to invest.
Diamond Foundry has closed three rounds of financing from individuals including actor Leonardo DiCaprio, Twitter/Medium founder Evan Williams, SUN Microsystems founder Andreas Bechtolsheim, Facebook cofounder Andrew McCollum, and many others.
DiCaprio starred in the movie Blood Diamond and has since taken on some related activism against the industry, which has been heavily criticised for its negative environmental impact and child labour.
Associated Press
Associated Press
Partners
The company says it has raised less than $100 million (€93 million) to date — which is significant considering the startup just publicly launched.
Roscheisen, the company’s CEO, was in the same PhD programme at Stanford as Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin. While Diamond Foundry is making the diamonds, it isn’t designing jewellery.
Instead, it has a marketplace with about 200 partnering designers who buy the crystals from Diamond Foundry, put them in their rings, bracelets, and necklaces, then sell them straight to consumers online. The designer purchases are currently the startup’s only source of income.
By buying diamonds through Diamond Foundry, the designers can avoid giving a cut of the money to traditional outlets like De Beers or Tiffany’s. That doesn’t mean Diamond Foundry is selling its jewels at a discount though.
Associated Press
Associated Press
While synthetic diamonds tend to cost about 30% less than naturally made and mined diamonds, Diamond Foundry says its product will cost about the same, if not more, than market value.
But are Diamond Foundry and its science-fiction-sounding vision the real deal?
Advertisement
Here’s how the company explained it:
The startup says it is “culturing diamonds,” and asserts its process does not yield traditional synthetic diamonds but “100% pure diamonds” with the same molecular imperfections of the diamonds you’d find in the earth.
An investor in Diamond Foundry likened the process to growing a plant. You need a seed from another plant for a new one to grow.
In this case, a small slice of a natural diamond is used as the base, or “seed,” to grow new layers on top of the crystal until new diamonds are formed. Then that “seed” base is scraped off and reused to grow new diamonds.
These diamonds are grown in a very hot reactor that reaches about 8,000 degrees Fahrenheit (nearly 4,500 degrees Celsius).
Diamonds are born from a fiery heat, so we set out to create a plasma of unprecedented energy density,” the company explains.
Diamond Foundry
Diamond Foundry
A slice of diamond
The company says it discovered a plasma that allows atoms to attach themselves to the thin slice of earth-extracted diamond. The atoms then stack on top of that natural diamond, layer by layer, until a pure, jewellery-grade diamond is formed.
Hundreds of these diamonds can be formed at once in just a few weeks, the largest so far weighing nine carats.
The difference comes down to the quality of the diamonds Roscheisen’s lab produces and the process used to make them.
“There is a big difference in how the technology works,” a company spokesperson explains.
The difference is that we add atoms to natural diamonds, and in fact our process would not work without the natural diamond as a substrate. The synthetic diamonds in the market are made using high pressure without any substrate for growth.”
The reactor Diamond Foundry
Diamond Foundry
In terms of quality, diamonds are rated by something called the GIA, which examines colour, clarity, cut, and carat weight. The GIA rates synthetic diamonds, but it uses fewer grading categories in terms of their colour and clarity.
Diamond Foundry, however, says its diamonds were rated by a GIA-trained gemologist who concluded they were “true jewellery white.”
Diamond Foundry says that because the industry is so large (roughly €28 billion), even if it’s producing hundreds of diamonds routinely in its lab, it won’t be able to make enough of them to seriously impact the overall price and demand for diamonds.
Diamond Foundry
Diamond Foundry
Another selling point for the startup is that consumers won’t have to worry about how their diamonds were made.
“[Ours] are pure diamond, just like industrially mined diamonds,” Diamond Foundry insists. “But ethically and morally pure as well.”
Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article.
Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.
This would stop alot of African conflicts and wars and exploitation. I sincerely hope he succeeds, top bloke and a good man, and has a righteous outlook.
De Beers bought the copyright to artificial diamonds and holds the price of them up close to natural diamonds. Win-Win for them. i can only guess that they are behind the multi-billionaire backers for this endeavor and as a direct result, diamonds will continue to rise in price even though supply has massively increased and demand hasn’t.
“De Beers bought the copyright to artificial diamonds” true, but this startup in making “real” diamonds & copying the way they are produced in nature. De Beers can’t copyright of buy a natural process would be like trying to copyright Rain.
Is this a business investment or a social justice initiative to lower the value of diamonds by increasing the supply?
Not very clever in any case:
(a) if diamonds can be made in a lab and diamonds are not differentiated between (natural or lab) then the supply will increase and the value of all diamonds will drop. He wont recoup his investment. Misery and exploitation in Africa will continue – it will just be something else instead of diamonds. The problem is not “diamonds” it is in their society.
(B) people will differentiate between natural and lab diamonds. This wont make any difference to Africa and he wont recoup a good investment because the price for lab diamonds will be low.
Might be good as a celebrity based social awareness campaign where hollywood stars right all the wrongs in Africa though. The Africans really need feminism too. Much more than food or infrastructure. We need to export our values to them.
If you can make diamonds then its a game changer. Its only a matter of time before others copy and they start to lose value. I wouldnt invest in this company (if i had any money)
This won’t work for jewellery. A large part of the mystique of diamonds is that they have been created by natural forces deep in the earth over millions of years and have been won from the earth at great expense.
The diamonds that can be made cheaply in a lab have no romance to them and therefor no appeal. They will just be another stone, no different from zirconium.
I can’t believe DeCarpio doesn’t understand this.
Now if these artificial diamonds are indistinguishable from natural diamonds and can be released onto the market and passed off as real diamonds then that might be a game changer. It would destroy the luxury diamond industry completely. Perhaps that is the intention.
Clashes in France as hundreds of thousands protest against budget cut plans
25 mins ago
939
13
evening fix
Here's What Happened Today: Thursday
28 mins ago
132
ABC
Jimmy Kimmel's late-night TV show cancelled - here's what he said about Trump and Charlie Kirk
14 hrs ago
38.6k
199
Your Cookies. Your Choice.
Cookies help provide our news service while also enabling the advertising needed to fund this work.
We categorise cookies as Necessary, Performance (used to analyse the site performance) and Targeting (used to target advertising which helps us keep this service free).
We and our 238 partners store and access personal data, like browsing data or unique identifiers, on your device. Selecting Accept All enables tracking technologies to support the purposes shown under we and our partners process data to provide. If trackers are disabled, some content and ads you see may not be as relevant to you. You can resurface this menu to change your choices or withdraw consent at any time by clicking the Cookie Preferences link on the bottom of the webpage . Your choices will have effect within our Website. For more details, refer to our Privacy Policy.
We and our vendors process data for the following purposes:
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
Cookies Preference Centre
We process your data to deliver content or advertisements and measure the delivery of such content or advertisements to extract insights about our website. We share this information with our partners on the basis of consent. You may exercise your right to consent, based on a specific purpose below or at a partner level in the link under each purpose. Some vendors may process your data based on their legitimate interests, which does not require your consent. You cannot object to tracking technologies placed to ensure security, prevent fraud, fix errors, or deliver and present advertising and content, and precise geolocation data and active scanning of device characteristics for identification may be used to support this purpose. This exception does not apply to targeted advertising. These choices will be signaled to our vendors participating in the Transparency and Consent Framework. The choices you make regarding the purposes and vendors listed in this notice are saved and stored locally on your device for a maximum duration of 1 year.
Manage Consent Preferences
Necessary Cookies
Always Active
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
Social Media Cookies
These cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.
Targeting Cookies
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
Functional Cookies
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
Performance Cookies
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Store and/or access information on a device 168 partners can use this purpose
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development 216 partners can use this purpose
Use limited data to select advertising 175 partners can use this purpose
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Create profiles for personalised advertising 133 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Use profiles to select personalised advertising 134 partners can use this purpose
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Create profiles to personalise content 54 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Use profiles to select personalised content 51 partners can use this purpose
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Measure advertising performance 192 partners can use this purpose
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Measure content performance 81 partners can use this purpose
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources 120 partners can use this purpose
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Develop and improve services 126 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Use limited data to select content 53 partners can use this purpose
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
Use precise geolocation data 69 partners can use this special feature
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Actively scan device characteristics for identification 40 partners can use this special feature
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Ensure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix errors 135 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Deliver and present advertising and content 138 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Match and combine data from other data sources 104 partners can use this feature
Always Active
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Link different devices 72 partners can use this feature
Always Active
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Identify devices based on information transmitted automatically 129 partners can use this feature
Always Active
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
Save and communicate privacy choices 118 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say