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Dec. 29, 2020
They were once a shimmering symbol of Startup Nation: the glass-and-steel office towers that filled high-tech parks in Tel Aviv, Herzliya and Haifa. But while Israeli high-tech has been thriving during the coronavirus, many companies are forswearing commercial real estate.
Tech companies are cancelling leases and pulling back from expansion plans at a rapid clip. Companies inside and outside high-tech are giving thought to how to redesign the office space they do have, and grapple with a host of psychological issues that arise when employees no longer come to the office every day.
Cybereason Labs is a cybersecurity company that occupied three floors in Tel Aviv’s Alton Towers. It’s taken 700 square meters of floor space to sublet. Another is Guesty, a platform for managing short-term rentals, which is subletting a quarter of its 6,000 square feet of office space in Tel Aviv’s Beit Yakhin tower.