Eclipse’s new CEO strives to move past predecessor’s scandal with more product and less drama
Vijay Chetty, the new CEO of Eclipse Labs, is done talking about his predecessor.
In late April and early May, multiple users on X accused Neel Somani, the then CEO, of sexual misconduct. Somani denied the allegations in a tweet and resigned as CEO of the startup he founded.
Chetty took over, and now he is keen to talk business. In an interview with DL News, he described the upcoming launch of Eclipse’s new blockchain, its use cases, and his long-term vision for his company and its ecosystem.
“These distractions of the past couple of months have been just that,” Chetty said, “distractions.”
Solana to Ethereum
Founded in 2022, Eclipse is building a layer 2 blockchain on Ethereum.
Like many of its ilk, Eclipse is designed to make Ethereum, essentially a slow decentralised computer, run faster.
Unlike its competitors, it lets developers port over software they wrote for Solana, a newer, faster blockchain, and run it on Ethereum, which is still where most blockchain developers write code.
Eclipse Labs attracted attention. The startup raised $15 million in funding in 2022 and then another $50 million in capital in 2024.
Its backers include stalwart crypto investors like Polychain Capital, Hack VC, Tribe Capital, and Apollo Global Management, the alternative assets giant.
However, in early May, just two months after closing its most recent funding round, Eclipse Labs made headlines for the wrong reasons.
On X, multiple users accused Somani of sexual misconduct. Somani, a former software developer at Airbnb and quantitative researcher at Citadel, founded Eclipse Labs, according to the company’s page on LinkedIn.
“I have never sexually assaulted or harassed any woman,” he wrote. “This is a serious issue endemic to our industry and society in general, and I don’t mean to minimise it by my denial of these false allegations.”
Testimony
The allegations inspired an outpouring of testimony from women about the crypto industry’s struggles with sexism.
“We are in an industry that famously doesn’t have many women, but does have incels,” one user wrote on X.
As allegations swirled, Somani resigned.
“While I work to clear my name and defend myself, it isn’t fair for the team at Eclipse, our investors, or our ecosystem of developers to have this situation weighing on their reputations and the technology that we are working so hard to build,” he said in a tweet on May 9.
Chetty took over.
The company did not say whether the founder and former CEO would remain on in any advisory capacity, which is a common move with startup founders.
Then two months later, Somani again surfaced in the media when CoinDesk reported that a former Polychain partner, Niraj Pant, made a side deal with Somani that violated the fund’s policies.
In his interview with DL News, Chetty, formerly the chief growth officer of Eclipse Labs, made it clear that Somani has permanently left the company.
Somani declined to comment to DL News on the allegations of sexual misconduct, his exit from Eclipse Labs, or the side deal with Pant.
Pant’s representatives did not respond to a request for comment, and he denied any wrongdoing to CoinDesk.
‘Caught off guard’
Chetty, who has now been at Eclipse for just over a year, told DL News he was “definitely caught off guard” when allegations about Somani started circulating on social media.
He said he previously hadn’t heard about Somani’s rumoured sexual misconduct and didn’t know about the alleged side deal between the former CEO and Pant.
Nathan Cha, who had just started as head of growth and marketing at Eclipse when the media storms went down, echoed Chetty’s surprise.
‘What we’ve been looking forward to the most is just putting this entire saga behind us.’
Nathan Cha, Eclipse
“All of a sudden, these allegations start coming out,” he told DL News. “And I don’t know what’s going on.”
Chetty declined to comment on any financial packages Somani may have received upon his exit.
Cha said that Chetty, who once worked for BlackRock as an investment associate and was a venture partner at Tribe Capital before he came to Eclipse, is different from other crypto executives.
“He’s not really like a lot of these crypto folks who mix work, life and pleasure, and go to a lot of these parties and these mixers late at night,” said Cha.
More product, less drama
“What we’ve been looking forward to the most is just putting this entire saga behind us and shipping the product that we wanted to ship for a while,” Cha added.
On Tuesday, the team announced that it will open its mainnet, or a production-ready version of its blockchain, to developers.
Decentralised applications, or dApps, that are building on Eclipse include Solend, a DeFi lender on Solana; Rarible, a NFT marketplace; and a “big wallet partner” whom Chetty declined to name.
He also said Eclipse has partnered with Pyth, a Jump Crypto-incubated data provider for blockchains.
Chetty wouldn’t give an exact date for when his company’s blockchain will go fully live, but a company representative said Eclipse Labs is planning for the fourth quarter of this year.
As for Somani, Chetty said he is still in touch with the former CEO in a “limited way” but only for “transitional” or “legacy” matters.
“We have a product that we believe in, and we believe in each other,” said Cha. “So let’s try to put this all behind us and turn the ship around.”
Ben Weiss is DL News’ Dubai Correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at [email protected].
