Catenaa, Saturday, January 03, 2026-Neel Somani, founder of Ethereum layer-2 protocol Eclipse, stepped down as Executive Chairman in October to concentrate on machine learning and research in large language models and mechanistic interpretability.
Somani founded Eclipse Labs in 2022 following the Terra blockchain collapse.
The company raised $15 million in seed funding to develop scaling solutions using the Solana Virtual Machine, initially offering rollup-as-a-service before pivoting in 2023 to a high-performance Ethereum layer-2 network.
After a $50 million Series A in early 2024, Somani transitioned from CEO to Executive Chairman, appointing Vijay Chetty as CEO.
In 2025, Eclipse launched its mainnet and shifted its strategy toward application development, naming Sydney Huang as CEO to lead the next phase.
Under Huang, Eclipse narrowed its focus to a single flagship application on its layer-2 infrastructure.
The application has not yet been announced, but the company indicated it would be revealed in the coming month.
Somani’s departure formalizes his exit from day-to-day leadership while retaining board authority and ownership stakes.
Industry observers note that such founder transitions are increasingly common in infrastructure-focused crypto startups as they mature.
Eclipse’s strategic pivot to a flagship application reflects broader trends in the crypto sector, emphasizing product consolidation and specialized offerings.
Somani’s move signals a personal shift toward research and development at the intersection of AI and blockchain, leaving Eclipse under new leadership to pursue its commercial objectives.
