Polygon co-founder Jaynti Kanani steps down, starts up two new ventures

Jaynti Kanani, Co-founder, Polygon

Jaynti Kanani, co-founder of the layer 2 blockchain startup Polygon has quit to focus on his two new ventures that he founded in 2023.

This development comes two months after Polygon reshuffled its top executives, naming Marc Boiron as the new CEO who was earlier the chief legal officer of the startup, among other changes.

Kanani took to X on October 4 to share the update. He wrote, “After kickstarting Polygon in 2017, around 6 months back, I decided to step back from the day-to-day grind. I'm more confident in Polygon's bright future and passionate community. I'll be focusing on new adventures while still cheering and contributing to Polygon from the sidelines. Bullish on Polygon 2.0!”

Responding to Moneycontrol's queries, Polygon's co-founder Sandeep Nailwal said, "He (Kanani) took a back seat 6-8 month back from day to day ops. He wanted to do something new."

Kanani along with Nailwal and Anurag Arjun had founded Polygon in late 2017. Over the years, the startup gained prominence among the blockchain and crypto community globally. In 2022, it raised $450 million in a funding round led by Peak XV (Sequoia Capital India then).

Some of its backers include Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban, Tiger Global, SoftBank, Galaxy Digital, Republic Capital, Makers Fund, Steadview Capital and Elevation Capital.

Nailwal reacted to Kanani’s tweet saying that this was an emotional moment for him. He wrote, “Man this makes me emotional. What a ride we've had together brother. But it's just the start for Polygon, I wish we could've done more for longer together in this crazy journey that is Polygon.”

“But hey, you got to do what you got to do. Let's keep pushing Polygon ahead together, inside or outside of Polygonlabs, it doesn't matter. Keep killing it Legend!,” he added.

According to Kanani’s LinkedIn profile, he founded Mozak, a new web startup in April 2023 and Morphic, a content-developing startup using innovative technologies in June 2023. Not much is known further about these ventures at the moment.

Man this makes me emotional. What a ride we've had together brother. But its just the start for Polygon, i wish we could've done more for longer together in this crazy journey that is Polygon. But hey, you got to do what you got to do.
Lets keep pushing Polygon ahead together,…

— Sandeep Nailwal | sandeep. polygon (@sandeepnailwal) October 4, 2023

Both Kanani and Nailwal had inspiring paths to their startup journey. Kanani's too had a real rags to riches story.

Before he co-founded a billion-dollar startup, Kanani's ambitions were limited to landing a decent salaried job that would help him pay off his father's debt. He was the son of a diamond factory worker and lived in a small house on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in Gujarat.