Redis plans Tel Aviv workforce reduction

The Israeli-founded database software company Redis is preparing to cut about a quarter of its workforce in Israel, with dozens of employees at its Tel Aviv development centre expected to receive dismissal notices, The Times of Israel reports. According to sources familiar with the matter, the company is slated to let go of about 75 of the roughly 300 staff at its Tel Aviv research-and-development centre. Redis employs about 1,300 people globally and declined to comment on the layoffs.

The move comes amid a broader wave of belt-tightening among Israeli technology firms. The Times of Israel notes that companies including Wix, Rapyd and Amdocs have announced layoffs in recent weeks as they seek to cut costs and reorganise, adapting to increased automation and to a stronger shekel that has made operating in Israel more expensive.

Despite the cuts, Redis recently signed a 10-year lease for new offices in Israel as part of plans to continue running its Israeli development centre, a signal that the company intends to maintain a significant local presence even as it trims headcount. Redis operates its largest R&D centre in Israel, alongside development hubs in the United States and Bulgaria and offices in London and Singapore.

Founded in Tel Aviv in 2011 by Ofer Bengal and Yiftach Shoolman, Redis develops a widely used real-time data platform. Earlier this year the company rolled out a context-and-memory platform designed for artificial-intelligence systems, aimed at helping AI agents search, gather and coordinate the business data they need to complete tasks. In February 2023, Redis appointed Rowan Trollope as chief executive, and its founders stepped back from management roles.

The company, now headquartered in Mountain View, California, said earlier this year that it had passed $300 million in annual recurring revenue, driven by rising demand for AI infrastructure, and that it has about 12,000 paying customers, including a third of the Fortune 100. To date, Redis has raised roughly $350 million and was valued at $2 billion in its most recent financing round in 2021.

The layoffs illustrate the pressures facing even well-funded Israeli tech firms as the industry adjusts to the economics of AI and to higher local costs. For Tel Aviv, home to Redis's largest engineering base, the reduction is a reminder that the city's tech sector is not immune to the reorganisations sweeping the wider industry, even as companies commit to staying.

Sources: timesofisrael.com.

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