Neel Somani, the founder of layer-2 Eclipse, stepped down from the role of Chief Executive Officer in October 2025 to focus full-time on machine learning research and academic fields.
Eclipse originally aimed to provide scaling solutions based on the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM), before pivoting to build a high-performance L2 network for Ethereum. The project raised $15 million in a seed round and $50 million in a Series A round in early 2024.
After the Series A round, Somani proactively stepped away from the CEO role, moving to Executive Chairman, and subsequently appointed Vijay Chetty and then Sydney Huang to run the company.
By mid-2025, Eclipse had attracted more than 1.1 million wallets, processed over 22.1 billion transactions, generated more than 1,242 ETH in fees, and supported 60 dApps and services within its ecosystem.
Nevertheless, the project has endured a challenging period after the launch of the ES token, with strong price volatility and large-scale staff reductions.
