Meet the Team
We are experienced
Founders and Scientists
Daphne Teo
Founding Partner
Daphne Teo
She was one of the initial shareholders and co-founders of the Singapore- and US-based Engine Biosciences and previously served as a board director and head of finance and operations in its critical early days before and after venture financing. She continues to serve as an advisor to Engine Bio.
She currently also serves as Chief Investment Officer of D3 Capital and previously worked at Goldman Sachs and HSBC in the Investment Banking Division in Hong Kong and Singapore.
At D3, she has executed and overseen a number of multi-million investments in real estate and natural resources across Asia and USA. She also serves as a board director at selected portfolio companies. In 2013, she was a co-founder and investor in the 3.6M sq. ft. Golden City integrated real estate development in Yangon, Myanmar and helped drive the successful sale of the company at a valuation of US$110 million in 2016 achieving triple digit IRR for D3.
Daphne received her master’s from Stanford University’s School of Engineering and her bachelor’s from Purdue University (highest honors), and she is currently pursuing her master’s in biotechnology at Johns Hopkins University.
Darin Baur
CFO
Darin Baur
Darin has been an advisor to multiple entities, including start-ups and funds in the biotechnology space, assisting with corporate finance and legal matters, and working on investments and related transactions.
He started his career as an attorney with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom in the United States, followed by senior investment banking roles with Citigroup, HSBC and Canaccord Genuity in the United States and Hong Kong.
Darin holds a J.D. from the Harvard University Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. and a B.A. from Albion College in Albion, Michigan, U.S.A.
Jeffrey Lu
Founding Partner
Jeffrey Lu
Jeff graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania.
David Epstein
Advisor
David Epstein
Prior to his appointment as Black Diamond’s President and CEO, David was Vice Dean, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, establishing the Centre for Technology & Development and building a pipeline of venture-backed companies. David was Associate Professor in the Cancer & Stem Cell Biology Program at Duke-NUS where he established a research program focused on the role of defective mRNA splicing in cancer. This work resulted in the simultaneous discovery of splicing-derived shared tumor antigens and their cognate TCR pairs, which has led to the founding of PairX Bio, a venture-backed Precision Immuno-Oncology company. Previously, he was Chief Scientific Officer at OSI Pharmaceuticals, acquired by Astellas Pharma for over $4 billion in 2010, and was a founder and senior executive at Archemix Corp. David’s R&D teams have progressed more than a dozen novel agents through clinical development in oncology, cardiovascular disease, and retinal degeneration.
David earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Brandeis University and led a joint post-doctoral fellowship in protein structure-function and NMR dynamics between the labs of Steven Benkovic (Penn State) and Peter Wright at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. He received a B.Sc. in Chemistry from Lewis & Clark College.
Paul Lin
Venture Partner
Paul Lin
Ken Nesmith
Venture Partner
Ken Nesmith
Cheryl Cui
Advisor
Cheryl Cui
Cheryl earned her joint PhD degree in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics from MIT and Harvard Medical School. Her research in building synthetic gene circuits and molecular systems have lead to publications in Science and Nature journals. Cheryl received her B.A.Sc. in Engineering Science and Biomedical Engineer from the University of Toronto.
Fiona Lee
Advisor
Fiona Lee
Fiona has trained extensively as a bench scientist, working on Neuroscience, Skin Biology, Stem cells and Oncology projects in academic and industry institutions across the world. Her scientific work has contributed to the foundations of new biotech start-ups as well as acquisition of competitive local and international research grants. Beyond her technical training, she has always been keen on extending the translatability of lab findings into real world solutions. At NSG, Fiona functions as an Investment Associate to assist in performing due diligence on new deals and formulation of investment memos.
Fiona was a recipient of the National Science Scholarship (NSS) from Agency of Science Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore. She received her DPhil from University of Oxford and her bachelor’s from Imperial College London (First Class Honours). After completing her studies, she underwent postdoctoral training at Karolinska Institutet (Sweden), Genome Institute of Singapore (A*STAR) and National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS).