While in graduate school, the entrepreneurs developed a gadget that advises golfers on club choice and helps find balls on the course. But one is now being accused of stealing the idea and forming a startup with venture capitalists to manufacture and market the device.
Two entrepreneurs’ friendship is “stuck in the rough” over the rights to a golfing gadget the pair developed as students at Yale University’s prestigious graduate School of Management, the New York Daily News reports.
The former classmates, Clinton Grusd and Salman Syed, came up with the idea for an electronic caddie that would advise golfers on which club to use, find balls on the course, and know a player’s strengths and weaknesses, the Daily News reports, and then dubbed the product Dolphin Golf.
But in court papers filed on September 18 in Manhattan Supreme Court, the Daily News reports, Grusd is now accusing Syed of secretly stealing the idea and running off with venture capitalists they met at the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute to form a startup company, Golfkick, that will manufacture and market the device.
The lawsuit, the Daily News reports, alleges that this summer, Syed and others “were engaging in a scheme to steal Dolphin Golf away from Grusd for their own benefit and that Syed, in breach of his agreement with Grusd and his fiduciary duties, was in fact fully pursuing the Dolphin Golf business.”
Syed’s product already has $4 million in investment, according to papers filed with the Securities Exchange Commission.
Grusd insists he had the idea for the device in 2011, the Daily News reports, explaining in court papers that as an Ironman triathlete he understood the value of detailed statistics and analysis of one’s performance.
Through his lawsuit, the Daily News reports, Grusd is seeking a 50% stake in Syed’s venture.
Grusd’s attorney declined to comment and Syed could not immediately be reached, according to the Daily News report.
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