Brant Girard leads diagnostics, cooling and venture startups after 28 years as a San Mateo lawyer

Brant Girard, 66, a San Mateo business lawyer for nearly three decades, now helps run three young companies: assaya, which builds a reader that turns rapid tests into measured digital results; LiquaCool, which is developing chip-level liquid cooling for AI data centers; and Desert Forge Ventures, a Las Vegas fund that backs early-stage startups.

He is chief executive and general counsel of assaya, partner and general counsel of Desert Forge, and general counsel of LiquaCool. He had expected to retire, but found new opportunities “too darn interesting and challenging to pass up,” he said.

assaya: making rapid tests readable

Rapid tests, the paper strips used for COVID, flu and many other checks, are cheap and fast but are usually read by eye as simply positive or negative. assaya’s iaX Intelligent Analyzer is a small, battery-powered reader that scans a finished test and turns its lines into a measured number in seconds, then uploads the result to the company’s AssayaDX cloud software.

The company says the device works with qualified tests from many makers, including Abbott, BD and Roche. It describes the reader as a Class I in vitro diagnostic device, the lowest-risk category of medical device, and lists certifications that include US FDA, the European Union’s IVD rules and Brazil’s ANVISA. The paper did not find an FDA clearance or approval for the reader. The company markets it for clinics, ambulances, farms, fish farms, food plants and water testing.

The goal, according to the company, is fewer misread tests, numbers that can show whether an infection or contaminant is rising, and results that health agencies can see across a whole region. Those are the company’s claims. The paper did not find independent studies that measure how well iaX performs across those uses.

One real-world use is in India. Evalyn Healthcare Solutions, a Mumbai company where Girard has been a board member since September 2025, has used the iaX reader with a sickle-cell test in Vindhanewadi village in Maharashtra’s Raigad district. Evalyn’s chief executive, Sumit Jagdale, reported that the system showed more than 99% sensitivity and more than 99% specificity when checked against HPLC, a standard lab method. The paper has not seen the underlying data.

LiquaCool: cooling at the chip

AI data centers are adding to electricity demand, and cooling them adds more. LiquaCool, based in Las Vegas, is developing sealed chambers of cooling liquid that fit directly over the hottest parts of a computer, such as processors, graphics chips and power electronics, instead of cooling a whole room or dunking servers in tanks.

The company says the approach fits standard server racks, can run on warm water instead of chillers, and in its tests cut power use 22% for the same workload. It says it has patent filings in the U.S., Europe, China, Japan, Taiwan and India, and plans to license its designs to equipment makers. Those figures come from LiquaCool. The paper did not find independent test results.

If its claims hold up, the company says, data centers could do more computing for each watt of power. The company is small: its LinkedIn page lists about three employees and a 2025 founding year.

LiquaCool’s website lists Girard as general counsel and international business developer. He has also used the title chief operating officer there, and dates his work with the company to June 2024, before its listed founding year.

Desert Forge Ventures: betting on Nevada

Desert Forge does not make products. It is a venture capital fund, which invests money in young companies in exchange for a share of ownership. It is led by managing partner Len Jessup, a former university president.

The fund says its aim is to make Southern Nevada “a destination and a foundry for technology and innovation.” It backs seed-stage founders, those at the earliest stage of raising money, whose companies would diversify and strengthen Nevada’s economy, while aiming for venture-scale returns. In October 2026 it announced it had finished raising its first fund. Girard is a partner, general counsel and analyst.

From plant labs to the law

Girard earned a bachelor’s degree in biology, genetics and agronomy, the science of crops and soil, at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where he studied from 1984 to 1988. He spent the next five years in plant research: at the Plant Cell Research Institute, on soybean protein and cucumber embryos, and at DNA Plant Technology, on roses in unusual colors and corn protein.

In 1992 he was the second author, with Juanita A.R. Ladyman, of a HortScience paper on growing cucumber embryos.

He earned a law degree at Santa Clara University School of Law in 1996 and was admitted to the California bar on Dec. 17 of that year. His license is active, with no discipline on record. After a year at the firm Vogl & Meredith, he opened the Law Office of Brant Girard in San Mateo in 1998 and ran it until March 2026, working as outside general counsel on company formation, boards, fundraising, contracts, employment, nonprofits, real estate and lawsuits.

A father in Stanford law

His father, Robert A. Girard, is a professor of law emeritus at Stanford Law School. The elder Girard was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black in 1956-57 and joined Stanford’s faculty in 1958. His teaching focused on environmental law, land-use planning and law and the political process. He also chaired the Santa Clara County Committee on Open Space.

Off the clock

Girard scuba dives and travels.

Source: Brant Girard’s LinkedIn profile; assaya; LiquaCool; Desert Forge Ventures; State Bar of California record; Stanford Law School faculty directory, 1991-92.