Yonatan Adiri On Raising $200 Million To Integrate Healthcare With Cell Phones

Innovation often emerges from the intersection of diverse experiences and perspectives. Yonatan Adiri’s journey, born in the heart of the startup nation, Israel, is a testament to this phenomenon.

Yonatan is also a member of the founding team of getaround.com and the founder of Healthy.io. The conversation with him provided valuable insights into the entrepreneurial journey, lessons learned, and the vision behind transforming healthcare through innovation.

His latest venture, Healthy.io, has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Corner Ventures, Joy Capital Ventures, Ansonia Holdings, Alf Fund, and Samsung Next.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Yonatan Adiri’s diverse background, from the youngest son of immigrants to diplomatic advisor and CTO, highlights the role of unique experiences in fostering innovation.
• The integration of technology and diplomacy during Yonatan’s service as CTO to President Shimon Peres pioneered a concept later adopted by global leaders, showcasing the intersection of diverse fields.
• Yonatan’s entrepreneurial journey, including being a member of the founding team at getaround.com, reflects the transformative potential of ideas born from innovative thinking, like the concept of an Intelligent Transportation Grid.
• The genesis of Healthy.io emerged from a personal realization and advanced healthcare infrastructure, demonstrating how life experiences can inspire groundbreaking solutions in unexpected areas.
• Yonatan’s vision for Healthy.io involves turning smartphone cameras into clinical-grade medical devices, utilizing AI to democratize healthcare and revolutionize diagnostic processes.
• Yonatan’s emphasis on patience, resilience, and planning for unknown challenges underscores the importance of building a resilient company culture for aspiring entrepreneurs.
• Yonatan’s transition from CEO to president at Healthy.io reflects a commitment to contribute to innovation in the public sector, showcasing a blend of entrepreneurial experience and public service for the future.

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About Yonatan Adiri:

At the age of 26, Yonatan Adiri was appointed by the President of Israel, Shimon Peres, as the country’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and steered a policy of technological diplomacy.

Yonatan participated in the inaugural class (2009) of Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program (GSP), where he co-founded Getaround.

In 2012, Yonathan was chosen by the World Economic Forum as one of its 100 Young Global Leaders and was selected by TIME Magazine as one of the 50 most influential people in healthcare in 2018.

Connect with Yonatan Adiri:

• TheOrg
• LinkedIn
• Crunchbase
• RocketReach

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: All righty hello everyone and welcome to the deal maker show that we have an amazing founder. You know that has been involved with a couple of companies you know and very successfully so you know we’re going to be talking about all the good stuff that we like to hear around building scaling financing. And all this stuff that you can think like for example, like building resilient camels versus unicorns which I think is very interesting I thinking about the way to to be and to have your team you know on the culture also raising capital dealing with no I mean in this case, he has sixty Nos during the seat round.

Yonatan Adiri: King.

Alejandro Cremades: And then also the fast follower feeling and how that ended up you know in a really interesting you know transaction but hey without further ado. Let’s welcome our guest today Jonathan Adiri welcome to the show.

Yonatan Adiri: Um, hi thanks for having me here.

Alejandro Cremades: So born in Israel in startup nation so give us a walk through memory lane. How is life growing up.

Yonatan Adiri: Ah, yeah, listen I yeah I grew up I was born here in the 80 s son to immigrants you know were even more likely to say refugees. My father came here from Iran. My mother in the in the early 50 s came here after the expulsion of the jewish community of of Baghdad Iraq. So very unique, kind of you know background ah, youngest of 4 boys which was a formative experience in our household. My dad. Just recently turned eighty a couple years ago closed his garage so I’ve seen an entrepreneur up close but I have to say the education being in a first generation. Ah, after immigration was education first and risk maybe for the grandchildren. So. And a bit of ah of less of a kind of classic israeli entrepreneur that grows it from tech into building a company. My story. You know, led me into public service I’ve spent the first fifteen years of my life in public service culmindating as a diplomatic advisor and the young. And a cto to 1 of the founding fathers of the country president Shimon Peres um you know being a cto to a president who was 86 years old and I was 26 um and you know, kind of witnessing and working statescraft from the white house.

Yonatan Adiri: So in Washington Bush and the Obama administration all the way down to Brazil Argentina South Korea and others getting a sense of you know the sausage factor if you will of of global politics is built at that age with that level of responsibility made me kind of understand the problem area. Of what the world is is you know, kind of suffering in which areas really need a solution and to your point after year one of working for the president I was sent to participate in a training ah program hosted in the Nasa facility in mountain view called singularity university the ah. The experiment class if you will in zero nine where you know I was fortunate to switch my mindset from just not just the problem area but the exponential way in which the second decade of the twenty first century is most likely to behave. It had a really profound switch of mindset understanding. How. You know to think exponentially on tech but also to try and predict for the purposes of building a company right and changing the world when prices are going to decline such that you need less and less capital to create effective disruption I’ve seen that up close as I played a. A role in the founding team of getaround dot com which was born out of that program. But sure.

Alejandro Cremades: And we’ll talk about that and we’ll talk about that in in in just a little bit because there’s a little bit here that you know that we need to unpack you know Jonatan so what? So so let’s let’s let’s let’s rewind back a little bit you know now and let’s go to that time where.

Yonatan Adiri: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Alejandro Cremades: You were 14 You got your undergrad at 14 I mean that’s that’s pretty unbelievable I haven’t heard that often. So so how was that for you.

Yonatan Adiri: Um, look honestly. Um I now have four kids myself and I I see how sort of I treat my youngest daughter. She’s now three years old so I have a lot of huge respect and understanding from my mom who kind of you know for me. Allowed for maximum freedom and kind of do whatever you want right? As long as you’re like in the lane of being a good person and um and having the morals in the right place. So the real story is I just had a great teacher in the public school in Israel when I was 14 who who. Called my mom and said listen the kid is great, not not a straight student but very very curious which is true I was never a straight a student. Um you may want to send him over this summer to the open university to try out a course and luckily for me my mom was like okay, why not do you want to do that and for me, it sounded like fun. You know like why not and. Luckily for me the university chose a course. Um that was led by Daniel Conman um you know the subsequent you know a Nobel laureate and this was a course about statistics and you know behavioral economics and I was blown away as a 14 year old of kind of understanding. You can. Make sense of human behavior in in in such a methodical way and kind of open my eyes into kind of you know the more I I deepen my understanding in this field. The better understand the world I can kind of you know, try to build systems which for me was always you know, interesting. So I kind of.

Yonatan Adiri: Spent the next three years deep diving into statistics and social sciences and really trying to build an image for of the world for myself and listen I was I was I grew up in Israel in in um, a cambrian explosion era right? 96 to 99 oslo agreements peace with the palestinians. You know, kind of year after year. Um, you know we went from one channel on the tv to like 200 we went from you know, like 3 radio stations to 25 you know, fully americanized in the good sense of the world right? like open to the west um, the high-tech industry started booming. Um. A very hopeful you know period where you would like work hard and and believe in in this massive future opportunities and so for me taking that university kind of experience at an early age was all about the pace of the new world right? right? like you know, ah the the. The end of history as fukuya you call it right? So um, it was never about you know, finishing the the degree it was more about kind of just gulping information that that made me see the world in a different way and and really made me feel capable. In many ways of making change.

Alejandro Cremades: Now for you. You know after this obviously you know like you ended up going to the army like you guys do there in in Israel and you were serving there as a negotiator for the red cross. Ah, but basically after this you know after doing the couple of years there that you need to do.

Yonatan Adiri: Um, get yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: Then you decided to pack the bags and come to New York so how was the experience too of being here seeing the american dream you know in New York City you know all of that stuff for you.

Yonatan Adiri: Um, yeah.

Yonatan Adiri: Ah, yeah, so listen 3 things that I sort of parted ways with by living by myself at 23 24 in New York um which which were really formative for my journey going forward I think first and foremost um, again being being born into the family that I was born into being the youngest of four boys. There were a lot of kind of inhibiting factors that I never realized were inhibiting right? I never I was always the youngest of war I was always you know, kind of within that sphere of influence of my parents and the family which was very tight knit so being out there helped me kind of. Build my own vision of the world and expose myself to different kind of thought processes. Um, ah you know that New York excels it right? be it culture museums art music and so on the second layer was you know what you write it what you kind of write about and talk about a lot and cover it the podcast which was kind of like the networking. Right? understanding that there are a lot of other people who dream of changing the world are impacting and making it different and you’re kind of not alone right? It’s kind of the long tail effect right in Israel you’re you’re 1 in a small group of people where ads in New York you you find these people aspiring to make ah to make a difference and I think the third was. Can to to you know I spent my years in New York and and doing research were were also formative in tech these were the early days of Netflix going digital. These were the early days of you know the iphone being launched and and blackberry being used you know by almost everybody right? so.

Yonatan Adiri: Starting to see the productivity gains that exponential technology starts to deliver those 3 things really I think kind of you know, made me who I amted in I’ll say one small thing which we may want to talk about later. It also made me mature. To meet the love of my life and appreciate who she is as a person we’re we’re together for fifteen years now I have four kids I think my years in New York and she’s from Switzerland um and kind of this international experience and kind of kind of learning things about myself by leaving alone in New York made me mature into the. The man I I was when I met her and and that was also a very important you know important part of the journey healthy I o as is get around as are the things that I that I’m focused on in my life is a partnership between my wife and I and in that period in New York really cemented. My ability to to see relationships that way and build that that trust that friendship. Um that that went through you know, 15 years for children and me building the company her building her initiatives here in Israel so that’s how formative New York was for me.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing now. At 1 point you know you receive the ah call for the opportunity of joining president Paris as the first c there I mean it’s it’s pretty amazing. You know the opportunity. So so how did that come about.

Yonatan Adiri: Okay, save it.

Yonatan Adiri: Um, yeah, so um, you know as as everything’s in life right? Some of it has yeah you know it has to do with serendipity the the story is that I met I was kind of thinking you know what’s what’s my next play right? I had master’s degree but I did not have it. Profession so to speak right? I was 25 26 and a colleague of mine said hey you may want to go to Mckinsey which sounded like a good idea but I didn’t have an Mba and I had to do like the off off cycle recruit and so I met a couple of very ah, very serious kind of folks in the industry in New York you know through networking and 1 of them. Gave me a book. Ah and he said you got to read this as you go through the case study kind of story and the book was called expert political judgment. How good is it? How can you know the story of the Fox and the hedgehog by Philip Tetlock ah a famous kind of um decision making researcher from from Berkeley. To keep it short the book basically tells you the guy asked for predictions from hundreds of experts for for 20 years right and he opens the box and and see that none of these experts had any predictive value better than a coin toss right? So the entire book is about like. You know what makes people different if I if I slice them by economy experts and infrastructure experts am I going to get any variance. The answer is no and at some point he says there’s an isabr lean division between foxes and hedgehogs right? experts who are foxes who kind of.

Yonatan Adiri: Scavenge around the woods. They know a little bit about everything you know what? you and I would call an entrepreneur right? like people who kind of get you done but they don’t know everything about a specific field whereas the hedgehogs do but every slight change in the ecosystem can kill a hedgehog whereas if the ecosystem changes many times the Fox would survive. Long story short of it. I come back to Israel colleague of mine was in the government kind of put my name in the in the hat when the president was looking for a chief of staff I came to do like 7 steps of interviews I go to the interview with the president remember the guy is 86 years old and he kind of says. Ah. His opening question is what book are you reading right? now I said I wanted this thing called the Fox and the hedgehog and I tell him the story I just told you and he said how does that relate to you know what? you think I should do with the presidency. So I said you know I look at you Mr. president. You’re a founding father of the state of Israel. You’ve had 60 years in politics you’ve always been a Fox and not a hedgehog right and you’ve always kind of mastered the understanding where the ecosystem is changing. You know, 2 steps ahead of that and let Israel there and I think that distinction is sort of where you want to also go as a president so he he kind of interjected and just to give you a sense of the of the you know, immense, unique nature of the situation. He tells me. I’ve actually had an argument with Isa Berlin in 1956 about this distinction between foxes and hedgehogs. So you kind like it’s good I’m not a bullshitter and I told an honest truth of like reading the book and you know how I got it anyway. The conversation in so was an incredible conversation I went home I got a call the next day saying listen the president.

Yonatan Adiri: Was very impressed with what you had to say but you didn’t get the job. You’re not the kind of guy that can be a chief of staff and you know in hindsight I was too young and too kind of I didn’t have the the you know the rigor and the strength of being the guy next to the door right? The gatekeeper if you will which is what you got to do when you’re a chief of staff. But then two weeks later I get a call from the director general says this and the president really loved your idea. He’s been thinking about how tech and diplomacy kind of converge would you come in and kind of you know, spend at least a year as the cto for the president and help him work diplomacy and and tech together. And then she gave me like a Stern warning said listen I’ve been working with them for 20 years there are 60 years between you the first three months will determine whether or not you gain his trust or not and if you don’t you’re not going to survive a year if you do I think you’re going to spend many many years here with the president. That’s actually you know how it unfolded I was really privileged to work with him. You know, visiting 60 heads of state from the white house to Brazil to Korea to Japan to Germany working with you know the world economic forum and really I think he pioneered this idea of where tech and diplomacy work together. We’ve subsequently seen the british prime minister ring in a seto and. And president Obama bring an cto and president Merkel but Chancellor Merkel bring us cto I think he was the first one. Um and as an eighty six year old the the way he fundamentally got the transformative power of tech right into our psyche into who we are in the second decade of the twenty first century

Yonatan Adiri: In which he would have turned to be 100 years old by the way um, was was second to none really and and it was I think you’re right? it was. It was ah an honest privilege to have served my country and also to have served under a Nobel prize winner. Ah, man who ah you know man of visioned man of peace who has really helped shape. You know, better middle east.

Alejandro Cremades: So in your case you know, eventually um you find yourself in the Us Once again, you know at Singularity University So why would you say that triggered you know that that experience you know going there and then also how did the whole thing of entering the venture world. You know be a.

Yonatan Adiri: In.

Alejandro Cremades: The idea of get around. You know how? how did this all whole thing unfold.

Yonatan Adiri: So you know the the story of the sorry of the inaugural class of of singularity. It was actually pretty interesting. President Paris met Ray Kurzweil a few years a few years earlier um and Ray ah ignited the thinking process with president Paris around this notion of of exponential curves and the law of accelerated returns and so when I got to the office. The president had a huge library. He came up to me and gave me Ray book and said you know one of the fundamental things I want to focus on is. Assume exponentiality as you try to understand the relationship between tech and diplomacy in the next decade and that’s what I did and then that was may 2008 fast forward six nine months later Ray and and the Nasa director announced. We’re going to do an inaugural class an experimental class and we’re going to try teaching teaching people for ninety days in a Nasa facility about this kind of methodology of thinking so I see that and I go I go to the president I say would you be willing to do you know? recommend. Me going and support the application I will be gone for for ninety days but I promise I’ll be back I’ll be 10 x better than what I and he he was like wow that sounds like you know that sound like a ah great sandbox I’d love to go myself. But yeah for sure and so.

Yonatan Adiri: In many ways it was Shimon Peres who who kind of led my thinking around around that and exploring this Nasa singularity training opportunity and you know I ended up as you said going which was a life changing experience. Um. You know it took a while live remember this is 2009 right? We’re still paying like sixty cents per sms bandwidth is expensive. There’s no cloud yet smartphones are like coming out Nokia is still a market dominant force us it like um and and. So I go there and it took a month you know out of the three months it took a month to kind of switch. But once it clicked as as team members of of that class. We all started kind of having crazy. Whiteboard sessions to 1 am M 2 am three m oh what do you do with water. What do you do with energy What do you do in space like if you think exponentially what’s going to happen in 201413 and so on one of these exercises was called ah the itg Sam Jessica um and some other folks Sarah were were sitting in the dorm saying well in like 11 years we just came back I don’t you remember sebasian trune he back then had a car called Stanley which was the kind of first autonomous car.

Yonatan Adiri: Ah, to win the the darpa challenge right out of Stanford University and we went to meet him and you were like whoa. So like 11 years out if if it’s going to all be exponential. The the sensors the battery this that the other. We may have you know a degree of autonom ah autonomous driving so itg was like the concept between Sam Jessica Sarah myself um Bentley the kind of founding team at get around of an intelligent transportation grid I hope I’m remembering it right? I have the I have the the. Feed funding deck on my computer. Um and the notion was well if it’s if indeed there’s itg if like cars are getting smarter. Yeah, you can get better utility and then Sam and a couple other folks went and wrote an algorithm trying to they downloaded the the transport transportation data. From the us the issue of transportation secretary search transportation and they came up with ah, kind of an algorithm kind of like Tcp ip if cars were just like units of routing information and all cars would have been fully autonomous. You’d need about a third of the cars. On the road to satisfy everybody’s transportation needs without any compromise. So if all the cars are being shared and they’re autonomous a third of the cars would get everybody to their destination. You know and so on and you know think about it. 2 wo-thirds of the cars are are superfluous right? so.

Yonatan Adiri: The the pollution the traffic and so on so that was the insight from one of those kind of whiteboard sessions then a couple days later we started thinking about zip car the ipo that a billion dollars remember a billion dollar ipo and 29 in Twenty Nine Two Thousand and nine was a big deal so we downloaded the s 1 and guess what they had like less than like 20000 cars in circulation if I remember correctly that drove a billion dollar valuation the third angle of get around was net that was sorry airbnb. But you started seeing this behavioral change where people would be willing to rent a room in their home. It was before airbnb would rent entire apartments right? when they would literally rent rooms. Well if people are willing to rent rooms in their homes and zip car is so big when people are willing and there’s a need to rent cars. Right? Like in in downtown areas and we understand that the future of the grid transportation wise is going to be autonomous exponentially developing why not make an airbnb for parking cars right? like why not allow the same way. We allow people to rent a room in their house. Why not allow them to rent their car right? when they don’t use it. And then the whole thing startedroing because get around we figured out get around. We had a funny I guess I have computer reproduced this funny video with Sam starring ah with like you know, looking at a parking lot and like all the cars are losing value and then we like made cars. You know, kind of gain value and the notion was what if you share your own car.

Yonatan Adiri: Again, like airbnb you’re going to actually gain money you turn your car from a money from a depreciating asset to an appreciating asset and then you know went out with a lot of guidance from the folks at singularity went out to ah to um, San Francisco and met you know folks who’d write your half million dollar check seed you know circa 2009 that was more or less the you probably remember that was kind of like the standard and you know so then we had to figure so we ended up you know, kind of figuring out who’s the most right? we finished the program samit and we had to tact whoever isn’t transitioning into because Sam was from canada.

Alejandro Cremades: No.

Yonatan Adiri: So was Jessica and kind of I knew I’m going back to serve the president right? So we agreed in order to raise the the money we had the good couple of leads. But no one would share. You know would split the founders equity by 6 and build a company that doesn’t work. That’s why companies usually outside of y combinator or places that are really designed for that. Don’t survive so we basically decided whoever isn’t integrating into Silicon Valley to build a company and be the man in the arena is going to have nice shares and is going to have an advisory board and and is going to contribute but is not going to share the equity pie in full right. And I think that document which I helped kind of forge as a negotiator I was pretty good at kind of figuring out. You know how to I think that document kind of kind of allowed for us to go out there raise proper capital and allowed for Sam Jessica Elliott and the founding team that that and Sarah and the folks who really immigrated to the Valley. Um, to build the company and make it make it. You know what it was and and you know a couple years ago becoming a a Nasda listed company and really the pioneer in the field right in many ways and and there are a lot of similarities by the way between the thinking process behind get around and healthy happy to kind of go back to that later.

Alejandro Cremades: And and obviously the the rest is history because the company you know, got the billion dollar valuation you know unicord status like you were saying you know went public I mean really incredible now in your case you know as you were saying you ended up going back to Israel.

Yonatan Adiri: Exactly. So.

Alejandro Cremades: And they going back to Israel obviously you know 1 thing led to the next and you end up launching your baby healthy. So why? how were how are the sequence of events you know for you to bring healthy to life. What what do you think needed to happen there.

Yonatan Adiri: So so this was a combination of 2 things first an understanding of that you know I kind of had an inertia in leading my career right? since that day when my teacher when I was 14 kind of you know, gave me that push. Things were kind of like 1 thing led to another when I came back from Nasa and get her on was born and spending time with Sam and Jessica remotely once per quarter I realized that you know for the first time in my life that I could actually make that change myself as well, right? and they started kind of moving from. But. Ah, if you will public service mindset of I’m going to put my talent and my time and my career in serving the public into I can serve the public by being an entrepreneur and that was a major shift and so for me the decision to become an entrepreneur was kind of top down. Public service driven right in a very perverse way right? I saw my entrepreneurial journey as one of public service so that was very clear for me I’m going to make this turn the second piece was well if it’s public service that I’m kind of if I want to really make a difference in the world for the better I can’t like there’s a very important. Kind of context to which company I’m trying to to form right? So different fields didn’t make sense the one that I honed into was healthcare care and you got to understand in Israel healthcare is kind of like a time machine for the world. This is a country with universal healthcare care.

Yonatan Adiri: Very competitive. Um, um, delivery organizations that are tax-funded but but operate like private entities. The company has had a digital health care infrastructure from 2002 including applications. Basically when we go to the doctor we have all our health records from 2002 from the you know blood test to Mri To City scans there’s a massive big data set here that predicts diseases that predicts um ah correlations of of medication and it’s not by chance that Israel is is over. Represented in the medical innovation space. A lot of drugs discovered a lot of life saved around the world including with countries with whom we have no diplomatic relations. You know, kind of really a lot of medicine has come out of Israel because of that so that was kind of my general direction I started plotting exponential. Um, curves if you will that like we did with get around try to say well this is two thousand and twelve thirteen where are the exponentials going to add 6 of them on my final kind of whiteboard one was smartphone camera clear exponential. Was clear that with every generations getting twice 3 times 4 times better. The second was smartphone batteries because if you have a great camera but every time you take a picture the battery diminishes. You know you don’t get anything the third was bandwidth you started seeing you know bandwidth becoming you know 3 g four g was kind of being thought of.

Yonatan Adiri: Um, then storage on the cloud computation on the cloud and then ah computation on the phone. All 6 remarkably showing their path towards the knee of the curves and all 6 also indicating massive price decline. So. If you will the genesis of healthy I was a very good prediction of deflationary tech right? exponential growth but declining prices so that was kind of where where I started focusing so digital health it’s going to It’s going to really grow because if bandwidth goes to 0 and it’s expanded if if cloud computation is 0 and you know the the applications are huge from like um radioography interpretation via Ai on the cloud all the way to wearables and so on and so forth and you know I was I was I was kind of going somewhere with that I had a thesis and again top down right? so. Public service type company healthcare you know, very strong added value and then looking at that exponential map I was looking for the idea of the of the kind of product one and the vision and then my parents turned my mom turned 70 my dad turned 70 and they started kind of traveling the world. They went to China. Um, and I get a call from actually that’s not true. My my oldest brother gets a call who is always my dad’s conciliary right? The first one to get a call is my first my oldest brother saying you know you know mom fell off kind of a small hill.

Yonatan Adiri: She lost consciousness. We. We took her to the hospital they were in some small town in China and she couldn’t breathe for a while she was unconscious. She’s okay, now they just did a city scan she she has broken ribs then we’re gonna fly in two days when she stabilizes to Hong Kong to you know continue checkups and so. You know I asked my brother to let me to kind of convene us all. Luckily luckily hundred before they flew they bought an Iphone four because they used to have like stupid phones before and I told my dad listen and what’s going on. Why are you all alerted. So you said listen. I’ve seen injured people in my life. It doesn’t look like she has only broken ribs. It’s very hard for her to breathe and she’s a bit disoriented. So I said listen that take pictures of the city scan with your smartphone and he actually didn’t know how to operate an email. He used to call it an ml he thought when we said email it’s ml. We had to guide him into how to send it. It was pre-watsock pre. You know, instant messaging. Obviously no Facebook account and whatnot and he sent me 4 pictures of that city scan and I took the the images and I had you know on my. P dial because president Peres. You know when we traveled with him he was 91 years old when I finished my formal role. We had a very senior trauma doctor flying with us just in case, right? So had all four best israeli trauma doctors on my speed dial I sent all 4 of them a text to saying listen and can I get your advice.

Yonatan Adiri: This and this and that happened and get an immediate call literally with 2 minutes was one of the best of them saying that’s what I said do you have the city scan I said yes, send me by email a minute later he he calls me back. He says listen, it’s very clear. She has nomaatorax she has a punctured lung. It’s a big issue. It’s going to be fine, but. You know one of you guys needs to fly there. She needs to spend a week or ten days on the ground until the whole thing kind of stabilizes. So what do you mean? they’re going to fly her out in 24 hours to Hong Kong there’s no way she can’t wear the plane. Her lungs can collapse because of the air pressure differences and so on if she’s not if she doesn’t have a medical.

Alejandro Cremades: Oh wow.

Yonatan Adiri: Assistance on the plane so you know like what? what are we going to do anyway. Long story short this kind of makeshift lucky um that my dad took the camera. He took the pictures. The bandwidth was still expensive but he sent it our way I had a doctor sort of at my disposal if you will that gave me a quick answer like. Anyone else could have taken two days to find the right doctor and she would have maybe died along the along that time. So we we and by the way that was the right distinction. She stayed there for about a week one of my brothers flew out there and she flew medical evacuation from that small town. Ah all the way to Israel. And got really good treatment that she’s fine and everything but like I walked around for weeks on weeks saying I what camera like it clicked I realized I have to do something with the camera and you know later on when we passed our first fda trial. The economist wrote a big piece about healthy io and they called us. Company that introduced the era of the medical selfie and I couldn’t articulate it that time but that was when the moment when the medical selfie was born was when I realized that if you can just send pictures around. There’s there’s a massive medical value hidden right. In those pictures and it can save lives and you know the kind of long for me is that I realized that if I take that map of x that deflationary tech prediction and I put it in the service of turning the smartphone camera to a clinical grade medical device so deploying Ai on the camera we can.

Yonatan Adiri: Change the lives of millions if not billions of people and that’s the genesis of healthy I o I saw what a lot of other entrepreneurs saw in 121314 the genesis of digital healthcare but whereas most I would say there were 3 axes back then of entrepreneurs one was wearables. Prices are going down. Let’s make a watch at this and that fitbit was kind of the big player there um the other piece was health I t clever health I t which I think did really well and the third was sorry to say selling bullshits buzzwords that. You know there’s going to be a white robe wearing Ai that’s going to rid us of cancer in 162 and you saw Google failing that and some other big big companies making bets in that direction. Ours was a fourthway unique way. Nobody believed in what we do. We literally the only company back then to do that was the camera and Ai no dongle. no wearable no connectivity that’s that’s what’s going to deliver radical healthcare improvements.

Alejandro Cremades: And obviously for this you know the rest is is history but they for healthy. You guys have also raised a quite a bit of money. How much money have you guys raised late.

Yonatan Adiri: So listen said I think I think the important piece to understand here was that learning lessons from getaround.com and and and Sam who’s been a phenomenal Ceo and has had this um intensity and the ability to go through like crisis in the early stages that I would talk to him and I was like Sam. You’re you’re incredible like you have Stamina mental stamina that I will never have I always opted for long runways. So when I raised the seed round I wanted $3000000 I knew I need to get from 0 to a working prototype that can go through the Fda and again back in 2013 to raise 3000000 for seed in digital healthcare in Israel. It’s crazy right. So you was 3 then it was 12 then it was 20 then it was 70 and then now 50 so all in total some around 200000000 and along the way um, including an acquisition and I’m happy to share later I mean we ended up acquiring our biggest competitor from Silicon Valley company you know ah for which I’ve lost a lot of hair and a lot of you know had a lot of sleepless nights you know competition is great and it drove us to be very sharp and I’m happy. We want that competition and and you know both with the Fda as well as kind of strategically in terms of who who managed to create a product that now has been used by a million people. So as you said in the beginning. Getting it from an idea to success and to scale. Um you know was a journey that that required roughly two $100000000 um, but very much piecemeal and very much kind of promise deliver raise capital promise deliver raise capital and that served us really well because there were many many crises for this industry.

Yonatan Adiri: Over the last decade and I think our path of surviving and thriving during those crises had to do with how we raise capital in kind of increments after proof and and growth and growth and growth that built an impeccable trust with our investors. That served us really well in times of crisis.

Alejandro Cremades: So I mean you’re alluding to it now you know like racing money the transaction that you guys did obviously vision plays our key role here. So if you were to go to sleep tonight and you wake up in a world where the vision of healthy is fully realized what does that world look like.

Yonatan Adiri: Yeah, so think maybe maybe just to preamble that and say you know when I went to sleep twelve years ago and had that vision of sort of building the medical selfie. It was also clear I cannot sell this vision as a unicorn vision. The culture of this company. The dialogue with the investors with our community of stakeholders would always be 1 of of resilience of long-term view um of patients and and would not have the term disruption involved in it right? We will not be selling pipe dreams. Investors like Elizabeth Holmes did which ended up also kind of injuring us as a company we will be if you will kind of we will be the camel when everybody else is a unicorn and so from that perspective the vision was always a long-term resilient company to survive and thrive. Through crises in healthcare and ultimately when I close my eyes now and you know I’ve transitioned a few weeks ago from the role of Ceo. The role of president happy to kind of share the thought behind that as well. But if everything works well within a decade what we have done to urine testing and we’re doing right now to chronic wound management. Every medical process that is image-based right will end up on our cal ai system and on our persuasion os transitioning into digital and Fda grade that is sorasis outbreaks that is different. Um, you know if you remember.

Yonatan Adiri: The microfluidics we used in in ah during covid right? So the variety of those that can be read at home and many of those are being developed right now at very high precision. Um, you know the future of smartphone optics are not going to be limited only to cameras. Right? The day is not far when we’ll have a hyperspectral sensor on our phones and imagine what you can do with that in healthcare if you have hyperspectral sensing on your phone. So basically my dream is for healthy. You know when it’s 20 is to be that hub that platform where all vision-based medicine is driven from the home. From your smartphone at Fda Grade we’ve done it already twice and if we succeed in the next two years and get to where we want to get in terms of profitability. There’s there’s no stopping us in that sense.

Alejandro Cremades: So then now that we’re talking about the future I Want to talk about the past but with a lynch of reflection imagine you were to go to sleep tonight I mean not to sleep tonight. But let’s say that you have the opportunity of dreaming too right? and and we’re goingnna dream here together and we’re goingnna be teletransporting ourselves to a.

Yonatan Adiri: Yep, yeah.

Yonatan Adiri: Yeah, yeah here.

Alejandro Cremades: Moment in time that was in the past. But let’s say you know that was putting you into a time machine and bringing you back in time you know, perhaps you know to when you were moving to New York and now you were in singularity university this incredible you know, innovation happening around you discussing ideas.

Yonatan Adiri: And.

Alejandro Cremades: Like that. Let’s say you were able to be right there on the spot and you will be able to say hey John 10 you’re going to be launching companies. You know’s you’re going to be an entrepreneur and being able to write there. Give your younger self one piece of advice. You know before launching a business What would you say that would be jenahan.

Yonatan Adiri: Okay, think um I was very fortunate before founding the business to get good advice from Sam and to learn from how Sam and Jessica and the team built get around a lot of the advice around runway opting optimizing for for investor. Quality and endurance over equity and and valuation I got very good advice and learnings from that I think you know 2024 yanatan going back to 2009 Yonatan Adiri: I think the main thing that I’ve learned is you know. Certain processes cannot be accelerated right? Even though we were patient and so on and so forth so certain processes cannot be accelerated and I think a kind of subset to that is um.

Yonatan Adiri: The the forces that that would hinder your growth are not in place in plain sight I have a big issue today with a lot of books and da-dada-da-da how to build a company. Those are great and they’re they’re a critical condition for you to be able to build stuff. But they are but no by no means there to really help you when shit really happens because when when the hardship happens it happens from the unexpected angles of the the industry or your field right? You kind of you get ready for the known unknowns. The books help you get ready for the known unknowns the books, the mentors the investors the board but reality has its way of like creating unknown unknowns right? There’s no textbook of what to do when you have a file with impeccable data with the Fda you expect the result within six months and then covid hits right. Colli of once in a century pandemic that gets everything delayed and you have capital and you know you have burn rate and things are moving in this Fda. You can’t move them because everybody’s state a pandemic right? right? So I think I would go back to Yanaton for 2000 and say hey. You got to plan for patients because you always got to think about the fact that you know unexpected stuff is going to happen and these are going to be some strategic things that can that can kill your company and they’re going to come from a direction that you don’t expect until a certain point where you’re like you know.

Yonatan Adiri: Predictable revenue and that becomes you know that kind of challenge where good ceos experience Ceos kind of run through the process as opposed to the nimbleness they kind of oh shit, we just got punched in the face. What do we do and in that sense I had a group of five six people who walked that path with me one of which is sort of year one really a late cofounder if you will Ron Zohar chief product officer without whom I was I would have never been able to undergo the crises and kind of these surprises right? that that really threatened to kill the business. Think 4 or 5 times within ah within a 12 year period and that would be my advice like there are killers for the business out there. They’re not where you expect them to be and you can’t think that if you’re surrounded by the best board and you read the best books and you’re super intelligent then you know you’re going to be able to defend yourself. That you’ll be able to defend yourself from the known unknowns. That’s for sure the better you are the better red. You are the better advice. You get you become more immune to the no-on unknowns but like the stuff we went through in a decade that’s the stuff you kind of think happens in the century. The pandemic. A colossal criminal case in our so in our business literally in our business that you know had everybody lose trust in innovation in healthcare and diagnostics. That’s the Theranos case. Um the failure of north of a billion dollar invested in Google Healthcare care to deliver any.

Yonatan Adiri: Significant change again. So like if Google can’t do it. How can you guys? do it right? like and then ultimately the dynamics with the regulators and the reimbursements and so on so you know it’s a bit of a longer answer about an unwinding but a winding 1 but really this this stuff comes from from places. You don’t expect them to come and you got to be patient and and. Have that reserve bandwidth and capital to you know the rainy day fund if you will.

Alejandro Cremades: Now for the people that are listening Junatan I will love to reach out and say hi. What is the best way for them to do so.

Yonatan Adiri: But easy on Twitter on a tonnadirie that’s kind of where I spend most my time these days less was never a big Linkedin fan. Um, and and had been out of Facebook I think for the last five years or so I lost my password at some point and I didn’t read I didn’t kind of.

Yonatan Adiri: Rejoined and I was like hey I don’t really need this but Twitter is where I learn ah is where I kind of share insights and and sort of that’s that’s the place to to interact and um, you know I spend a lot of time in the us and now my next episode here in Israel. Beyond being president and healthy I o is is basically going back to innovation entrepreneurship in the public sector I think that’s the next big kind of thing I’m very committed also to the future of Israel now having coming back into public sector factor with everything I’ve learned. Um, is sort of you know where I’m going to spend most of my time in the next few years

Alejandro Cremades: Well amazing. This was a absolutely incredible conversation johnnahan on behalf of everyone you know I want to thank you for giving us the pleasure and today it has been an honor to have you on the deal makers show today Jonna. So thank you so much.

Yonatan Adiri: Thank you and it’s ah it’s a privilege to be part of the part of the team part of the network now and part of the community and and I want to thank you for building this community and being so helpful really and helping us avoid the the the known unknowns if you will.

*****

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