A laser diode end-pumped Nd:YVO4 picosecond regenerative amplifier with the repetition rate of 1 kHz is demonstrated. At the pumping power of 20 W and pumping pulse width of 100 μs, a stable output power of 1.5 W is obtained with the extraction efficiency of 7.5%. The pulse width is measured to be about 15 ps, and the beam quality factors M2 in both directions are less than 1.4.