Elite Partners
Uncommon Thinkers: Sunny Singh
Founder, Roundglass and Edifecs
By Nat Rubio-Licht September 10, 2024
This article originally appeared in the September/October 2024 issue of Seattle magazine.
For Sunny Singh, wellness is more than his job.
As the founder of Roundglass, an app that helps users work activities such as meditation, breathwork and yoga into their daily routines, health and wellness are woven into the fabric of Singh’s life.
With decades of tech experience, Singh created the company in 2014 with the goal of giving people the tools to take their health, both mental and physical, into their own hands. The company’s app, called Roundglass Living, boasts more than 500,000 users.
“The idea is to enable people to deal with life issues like stress, like anxiety, like difficult relationships, difficult emotions, and create healthy habits,” Singh says. “We deal with all of these things using wellbeing practices like meditation, food, music, journaling, reflection, breathwork, and mix and match them, personalized for every individual.”
Along with its wellness services, the company also operates a philanthropic arm called the Roundglass Foundation. A gift from the foundation helped create the Roundglass India Center, based at Seattle University, in September 2023, which focuses on the research and study of contemporary India and the Indian-American experience.
Singh has spent the last three decades in the Seattle tech community, working in supply chain management at companies such as global logistics company Expeditors and Microsoft, finally starting his own company, Edifecs, in 1996.
Edifecs, a health technology firm that focuses on data exchange and interoperability, works with more than 350 health care customers, providers and government agencies. Singh shepherded Edifecs for more than 25 years, leading it through the early days of bootstrapping and debt to a multinational company worth north of $1 billion.
Singh’s experience has given him a unique perspective on the region’s strengths. He says that Seattle is often unfairly labeled as Silicon Valley’s little sister, but insists that the bubbling tech scene here is collaborative, collegial and supportive for both entrepreneurs and employees. Washington state, in fact, ranks only slightly below California in average annual tech worker salaries, and is also a close second in a ranking of top-paying states for AI jobs.
He adds that the Bay Area’s technology sector often feels like a “hectic rat race,” while Seattle’s community is far more tempered.
“The idea is to enable people to deal with life issues like stress, like anxiety, like difficult relationships, difficult emotions, and create healthy habits,”
Singh notes that while it’s more relaxed than the high-pressure hustle and bustle of Silicon Valley, Seattle’s tech scene has just as much to offer. With major tech companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and T-Mobile staking their claim, there’s no shortage of talented employees and knowledgeable mentors. The city also offers a substantial venture capital landscape.
“(Seattle) has access to a pool of entrepreneurs that have been there, done that, access to talent, access to infrastructure and mentoring, access to capital — those things are available over here,” Singh says. “If someone said ‘Hey, I love the North- west and I want to start a company here,’ there’s nothing that one will not be able to find here that’s somehow radically different in the Bay Area.”
Plus, the proximity to nature makes it easier to unplug — something that’s always beneficial when working in high- stress environments. “I’m really happy that I’ve spent over 30 years in Seattle,” he says. “I find it to be beautiful. Good people, good nature, and I don’t mind the rain.”