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Author: SAM KESSLER, CoinDesk; Compilation: 0xjs@作 作 作 作 作 作
Key points:
1. Polychain said that the former ordinary partner Niraj Pant and the investment group Eclipse Labs reached a secret transaction that violated the fund’s policy.
2. CoinDesk survey shows that Neel Somani, former CEO of Eclipse Labs, promised Pant to give a $ 13.3 million Eclipse tokens.
3. According to sources close to Eclipse, Pant promised to provide these tokens as a means to invest in Eclipse to invest in Eclipse with Polychain funds.
4. Polychain said that Pant did not disclose the transaction to Polychain.Polychain later invested in the Pant’s AI startup Ritual.
5. PANT confirmed that Eclipse Labs allocated the “consultant” tokens for him, but said that he did not reach an agreement with the company until Polychain invested.
6. This situation allows us to get a glimpse of the typical dark box transactions in the financing scenario of the crypto industry. VC has close relationships with projects, and is exchanged for consonant instead of traditional equity through investment.
The encrypted venture capital giant Polychain accused its former employee Niraj Pant and the investment portfolio Eclipse Labs behind -the -scenes transactions, which violated the fund’s policy.
According to the Eclipse internal files reviewed by the three people familiar with the matter and CoinDesk, Neel Somani, a former CEO of Eclipse Labs, quietly allocated 5%of the upcoming Eclipse cryptocurrency to PANT in September 2022 -just in the PANT instructions POLYChainAfter a few days before the company’s $ 6 million seeds.
final,The share was reduced to 1.33%, and it was valued at the latest completely diluted valuation of the token in the private investment wheel of $ 13.3 million.(According to sources close to ECLIPSE Labs, the company’s latest round of financing has a complete dilution value of the token FDV valuation of US $ 1 billion.)
Polychain was founded by Olaf Carlson-Wee, the first employee of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. It is one of the largest and most well-known cryptocurrency venture capital companies, with more than $ 11 billion in managing assets.From 2017 to 2023, Pant was a general partner of the company and was responsible for guiding the company’s venture capital funds to invest in a promising cryptocurrency startup.
Since then, PANT has become an outstanding figure in the encryption industry. He is currently the co -founder of the blockchain AI startup Ritual, which is another investment portfolio of Polychain.
Eclipse Labs builds a blockchain that integrates popular Solana and Ethereum network technology.After led by Eclipse in August 2022, the pre -financing wheel of the seeds,Polychain participated in Eclipse’s $ 50 million in Series A financing in March 2024.
Pant took the lead in conducting pre -seed transactions. The COINDESK survey showed that at the same time, the number of Eclipse cryptocurrencies he obtained was equivalent to the number of Polychain itself.According to CoinDesk’s sources, the transaction did not disclose to most senior executives, consultants or large investors in Eclipse.
Pant insisted that the arrangement was completely legal, because it was not finalized until September 2022 -one month after Polychain invested in Eclipse.He shared legal documents with Coindesk. The document showed that his “consultant” of Eclipse tokens was allocated to 1.33%in 2024, but he refused to comment on his original coins or why it was amended.
Polychain told Coindesk that after Pant left the company in 2023, they knew that Pant had Eclipse tokens.The fund said he should disclose the transaction based on the Polychain policy, which aims to protect the company and its investors from the impact of the conflict of interest.
A spokesman for Polychain said in an email to CoinDesk: “After Niraj Pant left the company, Polychain learned that the financial relationship between Eclipse and him. Polychain has strict policies and procedures for employees who served as consultants.After leaving Polychain, the company realized that he had violated the policy and launched an investigation on the matter. “
The statement issued by Polychain to CoinDesk allows people to glimpse the tedious processes of crypto venture capital companies and their funding projects.Risk investment companies rarely discuss personnel issues or trading structures. Polychain publicly disclosed PANT’s violation of policies when CoinDesk contacted this article.
Vague timeline
This news may exacerbate the dispute around Somani. Somani quit his post in May due to improper sexual behavior.Somani denied these allegations and refused to comment on this article.
The founder of Eclipse, Neel Somani, resigned from the company’s “Public Image Spokes” due to improper sexual behavior.(Andrew gonzalez photography)
The two sources close to Eclipse were unwilling to disclose their names to CoinDesk that before the end of the seed transaction, Somani promised to provide PANT with a 5% consultant share of Eclipse token.
According to the files checked by Coindesk, PANT’s currency holding share is higher than any Eclipse investor except Polychain. Polychain also holds 5%of the Eclipse tokens.The amount of PANT’s currency exceeds the distribution of consultants, investors and ECLIPSE employees except the former CEO.
According to two people familiar with the matter, Somani told him the core circle that the generous token reward was to motivate PANT to use Polychain’s cash investment and the support of the senior venture capitalist.
Polychain officially said that the arrangement was not disclosed to the risk investment company or its limited partners.
Token instead of equity
This incident also gave us a glimpse of the unique financing specifications of the cryptocurrency industry. Digital tokens are usually granted simultaneously with equity, or instead of equity award.Blockchain applications, digital assets and decentralized ledger are usually promoted as a more transparent alternative than traditional finance, but the ownership structure of many leading projects and cryptocurrencies is still opaque.
Eclipse Labs builds a 2 -story blockchain, providing users with a faster and cheaper way to trade on the Ethereum network.The main attraction of the network is that it borrows the elements of the popular Solana blockchain to support the key elements of its technical design -this detail helps it cause a sensation in the two largest blockchain communities.
In ECLIPSE’s financing cases, token distribution is critical because few investors have obtained the equity of the project.Most people are just part of the promise to get part of the Eclipse tokens -this is a cryptocurrency that does not exist, and Eclipse has not even announced publicly.
This arrangement is not uncommon.Cryptocurrency investors often use cash to exchange currency instead of traditional equity, and the company rarely discloses these arrangements to the public, so as to prevent financial regulatory agencies from providing ammunition in the struggle to classify cryptocurrencies as investment securities.
A spokesman for Eclipse Labs told CoinDesk: “Eclipse Labs will not disclose investors’ holding percentage to investors.”
Internal token allocation form reviewed by Coindesk,Eclipse employees, investors and consultants have promised to get nearly 50%of the future ECLIPSE token supply.
Pant insisted that the consultant agreement he signed with Eclipse was bright and bright.He shared legal documents with Coindesk, showing that he would get 1.33%of Eclipse tokens.
Excerpted from the revised version of the consultation agreement provided by Niraj Pant
This amount — revised according to the total amount of PANT before -the PANT that PANT, which was disclosed by documents and insiders, was initially promised 5%, but it was still higher than all other Eclipse consultants and almost all investors and employees.
The consultation agreement signed by PANT was April 29, 2024 (after he left Polychain), signed by both parties: Niraj Pant, representing the Neel Somani of Eclipse Labs; representing “The Psychology Operations Co”.
Excerpted from the revised version of the consultation agreement provided by Niraj Pant, signed by Pant and Neel Somani
According to the agreement, Psychology Operations CO. will receive the tokens of Eclipse in exchange for the “regular conference synchronization meeting” required by ECLIPSE.The agreement itself did not mention Polychain or its pre -investing seeds to Eclipse.
The protocol version provided by the Pant to CoinDesk shows that this is a “revision” of an early consultation agreement signed on September 8, 2022. At that time, Eclipse’s seed wheel financing was over, and he was still the ordinary partnership of Polychain at that time.people.
Pant refused to disclose the initial agreement.
Polychain’s policy
Regardless of whether Pant’s consultant position is determined before the seed wheel transaction, if he is working as a consultant in Eclipse, he is still working at Polychain -as he proves in his own file -The moral policy disclosed this, and the company described it in a lengthy disclosure document submitted to the US SEC.
Polychain wrote in the official policy document submitted to the US SEC: “In order to monitor any conflict of interest, Polychain employees must clean up certain expected transactions in their personal accounts in advance, and must be disclosed in initial and annual disclosure of all personal accounts.The position of holding and disclosed all transactions on the quarter. “
This situation is particularly noticeable, because Pant is not only a former employee of Polychain, but also the co -founder of Ritual, one of Polychain’s most concerned investment portfolios.
After leaving Polychain last year and founding Ritual, PANT rose rapidly and became a frequent guest in the blockchain industry speech circle. It was regarded as an ideological leader in encryption and AI cross -crossing.Ritual aims to decentralize the execution of AI models and is one of the projects combining blockchain and AI. These projects have become darlings of venture capital.In November 2023, it raised $ 25 million from Polychain and other companies.
Polychain refuses to comment on whether the relationship with Ritual has changed due to PANT’s suspected violation of policies, or whether it knows this violation of the policy before investing in Ritual.
Despite the suspected violations of policies, Polychain’s investment in Eclipse may still be returned.According to a source close to the fund, since the company’s first investment in 2022, its value in Eclipse has increased by 10 times.
Correction: According to people familiar with the matter, Niraj Pant’s initial token distribution is more than Eclipse’s current CEO of Eclipse.
