Sanjay Singhal

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Sanjay Singhal

Sanjay Singhal (Born September 12th 1965) is a Canadian Technology Entrepreneur and author. He is best known for founding and selling Audiobooks.com in 2016 for an undisclosed amount to RB Media.

In June 2016, as he negotiated the sale of Audiobooks, Singhal partnered with 500 Startups, a US headquartered startup community and venture capital firm for founders, mentors, and investors, to create 500 Startups Canada. 500 Startups Canada invested in 38 companies before suspending its investment period. 500 Startups Canada continues to make follow on investments with Singhal continuing as Managing Partner. In 2018, Singhal self-published his autobiography, “Zero to Tesla” chronicling his bankruptcy at age 31, diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder, and the business successes that followed. In November 2018, Singhal teamed up with his friend Steven Daicos to launch Coffee Oysters and Champagne , a lounge on King Street West in Toronto.

Personal

Singhal was born on September 12th 1965 in New Delhi, India, and moved to Canada when he was three years old, so his father, Dr. Ram Singhal, could work on and receive a PhD in Physics at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, New Brunswick. His mother, Nirmal Singhal, obtained a degree in business and worked for the family business which was residential property development. He has one sister, Angela, who is seven years younger than him and lives in Boston with her family.

Singhal lived in Fredericton to age 20, attending the local campus of the University of New Brunswick to obtain a degree in Electrical Engineering. He then moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, to obtain a Masters Degree, also in Electrical Engineering. On graduation in 1988 he joined Nortel Networks in Toronto in an engineering role. In 1990 he received a full scholarship from Nortel Networks to attend Cornell University, graduating with an MBA from the Johnson School at age 24.

Career History

Immediately after completing his MBA in 1992, Singhal founded his first startup, “VideoDrive”, which he claims would have been Netflix except there was no internet or DVDs. VideoDrive took phone calls and delivered VHS tapes of movies to people’s homes in downtown Toronto. The business lasted a short six months, losing $100,000.

Between the years of 1992 and 1995, Singhal began climbing the ladder of the Tech Industry first as a manager at Nortel Networks, then as a Consultant for PRTM (1994-1995), a Product Manager at Qualcomm (1995-1996), then landed the position of Director of Product Marketing for Uniden SRC (1996-1997).

In 1996 Singhal founded his second startup, “Nikean”, which developed the world’s first hand-held wireless email device, combining a hacked PalmPilot with a Cellular Digital Packet Data. modem from Novatel Wireless. Despite a working product and customer orders, the company was unable to raise external funding and it’s assets were acquired by Novatel Wireless in 1997. Singhal lost $500,000 and declared personal bankruptcy in 1998.

Singhal returned to corporate life as Canadian sales manager for Scientific Atlanta, a maker of set top boxes for cable television. He was successful, earning a Salesperson of the Year award, but after only two years, in 2000 he quit and returned to startup life, joining Mpathix, a telecom voicemail solutions company as VP of Sales. He stayed with Mpathix for four years.

In 2003 Singhal invested in Simply Audiobooks, a Netflix-style audiobook rental company founded by Sean Neville and Steven Sorge. In 2004 Singhal left Mpathix and joined Simply Audiobooks as Manager of Customer Service. He gradually rose to the role of COO, and in 2009 bought out Neville and Sorge’s interest in the company with a new partner, Ryan Van Barneveld In 2014, Singhal acquired the company outright, then sold it in 2016 to RB Media for an undisclosed amount.

Donations and Sponsorships

Long standing supporter of SANSAR, the South Asian Network Supporting Awareness & Research. A non-profit organization that is committed to the awareness and promotion of cardiovascular health for the South Asian population through research, education and clinical initiatives.

External Links

Sanjay Singhal on Twitter

Interview by Chris Herbert of Mi6 Agency - Marketing Integration. The 7 Questions Interview Series: Angels and Venture Capitalists

Sanjay Singhal speaks at StartUp Grind Toronto about 500 Startups Canada

Angel One Investor's 2015 Contributor of the Year on Youtube

Audiobooks.com aiming to be ‘the next big Canadian tech story’ by Ashante Infantry of The Star

Interview by the Region of Halton on the location of Audiobooks.com

Keynote Speaker Sanjay Singhal at the University of Waterloo Fall 2008

An incubator for ideas by Steve Arnold of The Hamilton Spectator

500 Startups’s first Canadian fund on track to exceed $30-million target by Sean Cilcoff of The Globe and Mail

Zero to Tesla: Confessions From My Entrepreneurial Journey on BookBaby

Sanjay Singhal, Founder of Audiobooks.com by Nidhi Shrivastava of Anokhi Media

Toronto's Audiobooks.com launches all-you-can-hear cloud streaming by Zara McAlister of The Financial Post

References

This article "Sanjay Singhal" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Sanjay Singhal. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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