Eclipse founder Neil Somani leaves company amid sexual harassment allegations
Eclipse today announced the appointment of Chief Growth Officer Vijay Chetty as its new CEO, replacing Neel Somani. According to Eclipse, founder Somani is leaving the company.
“In addition to his investment experience at BlackRock, Chetty brings over 10 years of native cryptocurrency experience from leadership positions at Uniswap Labs, dYdX Trading, and Ripple Labs.” Eclipse wrote In the X post.
The replacement comes less than a week after former CEO and founder Somani admitted to sexual harassment allegations at X Post, which he denied. Somani: “I have never sexually assaulted or harassed any woman.” wrote last week. “This is a serious problem that permeates our industry and society at large, and denying these false claims does not diminish it.”
Somani, who founded the blockchain company in 2022, announced at the time that he planned to scale back his role as the “public face” of Eclipse. that told The Block Last week he announced plans to continue as CEO of Eclipse.
Eclipse did not elaborate on the reasons for Somani’s resignation, but Web3 venture capital firm Hack VC wrote to X shortly after the announcement that it had joined forces with other investors in Eclipse to call for Neel’s resignation. “And we’re excited to see that happen.” Hack VC wrote. The VC co-led Eclipse’s $50 million Series A funding round last March.
Somani’s X profile His description has since been changed to remove Eclipse. Instead it says “I don’t use Twitter.”
Neither Eclipse nor Somani immediately responded to The Block’s request for further comment.
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About the author
Danny Park is The Block’s East Asia reporter, writing about topics including Web3 development and cryptocurrency regulation in the region. He previously worked as a reporter for Forkast.News, where he actively covered the fall of Terra-Luna and FTX. Based in Seoul, Danny previously produced written and video content for media companies in Korea, Hong Kong and China. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Business Marketing from the University of Hong Kong.
