This article tells the story of Toptal, a startup that aimed to revolutionize the tech talent market. It explores the journey of its founder, Du Val, and his early investor, Grosz, highlighting their ambitions, conflicts, and the legal battle that ensued.
A Bay Area tech investor found a way to generate revenue from all the eyeballs on his social network. You'd be extremely rich. But for every Nvidia or Facebook, there are many more flameouts. Some hardly get off the ground, while others raise money at lofty valuations before vanishing into obscurity. And sometimes there's lots of drama. It's as much a part of the fabric of Silicon Valley as the enigmatic billionaire founders, though not every scandal makes the front page.
More than twelve years ago, Grosz, a Bay Area tech investor, put money into a tiny but profitable startup with a novel mission: Matching talented software developers around the world with companies looking for the most affordable skilled labor. A few years later, Grosz told other investors he expected a healthy return on his early bet. The company was called Toptal, which is short for top talent, and his investment marked the beginning of a soap opera that has soiled reputations, caused turmoil within a promising startup, and sparked a battle that today is raging in federal court. Du Val is founder and CEO of Toptal. He launched the company in 2010 after working engineering jobs at other startups. Du Val didn't go to college, deciding instead to gamble on himself.Toptal got speedy traction, and Du Val was determined to run it as a lean operation. Less than two years in, word of the company's success started getting out, and venture capitalists began looking to invest.Du Val describes Grosz as a sophisticated investor, having backed startups including Thumbtack, Udemy, and Apartment List, according to Grosz's website. The two men were on a mission together – to turn the tiny business with fewer than 50 employees into an industry powerhouse. In 2012Grosz loaned Toptal $1 million at a 4% interest and also signed an advisor agreement with the company to provide expertise on search engine optimization to assist growth. And the company grew. Du Val says Toptal now has more than 600 employee
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