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SmartUp \ About
The SmartUp Academy is a comprehensive residency program partnering with individuals and entrepreneurs who want to build profitable, successful companies. Our program inspires participants to think differently about every aspect of their business, from operations to product development to marketing and sales.
SmartUp partners with individuals and entrepreneurs motivated to realize their dreams and reach profitability in 3-5 years with a modest investment. We empower our partners by providing detailed planning strategies to execute innovative business plans that maximize returns.
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Building a successful company is a career that requires mastery – just like any other profession. Learning how to do the work is the first step, but true mastery comes from years of practice and experience.
Yonatan Stern
Founder

SmartUp’s Principles

Self-Reliance

Paradigm Shift

Long Lasting Sustainable Ventures

Trial & Error

Marketing First

Self-Reliance

Companies that work with SmartUp strive for independence by minimizing external investment and cultivating profitability through viable organic growth. By fostering self-reliance, these entrepreneurs maximize capital intake, improve their business strategies, and increase their competitive advantage.

Paradigm Shift

The SmartUp methodology supports entrepreneurs in building a lean company with a modest investment instead of current trends that often rely on capital intakes to fund rapid growth.

Long Lasting Sustainable Ventures

While entrepreneurs tend to cherish and protect their business ventures, investors' perceptions are more materialistic. SmartUp draws on a proven methodology to empower entrepreneurs while they create independent companies built to last.

Trial & Error

Building a new company is a challenging journey, and it’s easy to miss the mark sometimes. The team at SmartUp has over two decades of experience and believes all mistakes are learning opportunities.

Marketing First

A crucial stage for designing a sellable product is communicating the underlying idea to the target audience and creating a dialogue with future customers. Developing a tight connection with potential clients will ensure the product offers a beneficial solution to a real unsolved problem.

Self-Reliance

Companies that work with SmartUp strive for independence by minimizing external investment and cultivating profitability through viable organic growth. By fostering self-reliance, these entrepreneurs maximize capital intake, improve their business strategies, and increase their competitive advantage.

Paradigm Shift

The SmartUp methodology supports entrepreneurs in building a lean company with a modest investment instead of current trends that often rely on capital intakes to fund rapid growth.

Long Lasting Sustainable Ventures

While entrepreneurs tend to cherish and protect their business ventures, investors' perceptions are more materialistic. SmartUp draws on a proven methodology to empower entrepreneurs while they create independent companies built to last.

Trial & Error

Building a new company is a challenging journey, and it’s easy to miss the mark sometimes. The team at SmartUp has over two decades of experience and believes all mistakes are learning opportunities.

Marketing First

A crucial stage for designing a sellable product is communicating the underlying idea to the target audience and creating a dialogue with future customers. Developing a tight connection with potential clients will ensure the product offers a beneficial solution to a real unsolved problem.

About Yonatan

Over the past three decades, Yonatan has co-founded and managed eight successful tech companies. His professional experience and unique personality led him to formulate the SmartUp methodology as a guideline for building independent and profitable companies.

Yonatan has a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. in Computer Science from the Technion and holds six registered patents. After completing his B.Sc., Yonatan enlisted in Unit 8200 in the IDF, where he rose to the rank of Major and received the Israeli Defense Prize.

After making many mistakes as a founder and CEO of his companies, Yonatan formulated the SmartUp methodology. His central vision is to enable entrepreneurs to execute their ideas and build profitable, long-lasting companies.

SmartUp is everything but trendy slogans, and the program guides entrepreneurs step-by-step. Yonatan’s method focuses on processing ideas, communicating with potential clients, developing a product already in demand, generating revenue, and using those profits to scale up and improve product offerings.

The SmartUp Team

Yonatan Stern

Founder

Libby Molad

COO

Ayala Dinur Turgeman

CFO

Alex Yermakov

Software Architect

Dr. Renana Leviani

Marketing Manager

Batya Feldman

Content Specialist

Ruthie Surujon

Curriculum Developer

Yonatan’s Timeline

1985
1991
2000
2006
2005
2014
2017
2021
2020
2021

Rosh Intelligent Systems

Yonatan's entrepreneurial journey began when he and some friends from the military founded Rosh Intelligent Systems.

Rosh developed innovative AI tools to help engineers diagnose, fix, and maintain complex technological equipment. Among Rosh's customers were Xerox, Applied Materials, Philips Medical, Siemens, and Olivety.

Rosh's activity was transferred to the US while the R&D group remained in Israel. Net Manage acquired the R&D group, while Rosh Intelligent Systems went through a series of M&As and is now part of Verint Systems (NASDAQ: VRNT).

CardScan

In 1993, Yonatan left Rosh to establish CardScan, a software company and small scanner designed to read business cards while automatically building a searchable digital address book. CardScan scaled up and eventually controlled more than 80% of the market share.

ZoomInfo

In 1999, Yonatan started a small research group inside CardScan to explore the possibility of scanning/crawling the internet to extract information about people and companies from public data (mainly company websites, news, press releases, and other sources).

In 2000, with a small loan from CardScan, the research group spun out from the company and was named ZoomInfo.

Yonatan chose to focus his attention on scaling ZoomInfo and stepped down as CEO of CardScan.

CardScan Acquired by DYMO

CardScan raised less than $5 million from Israeli VC funds and became profitable after only two years. In 2006, CardScan was acquired by DYMO, the electronic office products subsidiary of Newell Rubbermaid.

Bizo

In 2005, ZoomInfo published its entire database on the internet and received tremendous traffic, but there was far more value in the data targeting advertisers. As a result, ZoomInfo spun off another company to shareholders called Bizo.

Bizo Acquired

In 2014, Bizo was acquired by LinkedIn for $175 Million.

ZoomInfo Acquired

In 2017, the private equity group Great Hill Partners acquired ZoomInfo for $240 million.

ZoomInfo

Yonatan stayed on as CEO and Chief Scientist of ZoomInfo until August 2018. He stepped down to focus on his YLabs initiatives, remaining a shareholder and board member. Six months later, in February of 2019, ZoomInfo was acquired again – this time by its biggest competitor, DiscoverOrg.

ZoomInfo's IPO

In June 2020, ZoomInfo went public and is now one of Israel’s largest public companies.

SmartUp

In 2021 Yonatan established an entrepreneurial internship program to teach founders how to build profitable and successful companies in a few years and with a modest investment.