Redis, the database software company founded in Tel Aviv in 2011, is preparing to cut about 75 jobs at its Israeli development center, or roughly a quarter of its 300-person Israel workforce, per the report on the Israeli layoffs. The cuts, expected to be delivered as dismissal notices this week, would land at the largest research and development hub of a firm that recently signed a 10-year rental lease on new offices in Israel. Redis declined to comment on the round when contacted. The cuts come after layoffs at Wix, Rapyd, and Amdocs in the wider wave of Israeli tech restructuring tied to a stronger shekel and a sector-wide push to reorganize work around artificial intelligence.
The Times of Israel, citing people familiar with the matter, said the Tel Aviv cuts would affect about 75 employees and represent about a quarter of the 300-person Israel workforce. Redis employs about 1,300 people globally, making the local layoffs a meaningful share of the company’s engineering footprint. The Israeli business daily Globes, in a separate report, put the number closer to 80 workers, calling the round “one of the most significant” at the company in recent years and noting it stands at roughly 27% of the Israeli workforce. Both reports appeared on July 13, 2026. A Redis spokesperson told Globes that “the company does not respond to rumors and speculation,” declining to put a public rationale on the cuts.
The Cuts in Tel Aviv
The database software developer, founded by Ofer Bengal and Yiftach Shoolman in Tel Aviv in 2011, is cutting about 75 jobs at its Israeli research and development center, the country’s largest by headcount, The Times of Israel reported. The cuts affect about a quarter of the 300-person workforce in Israel. The company employs about 1,300 people globally.
The Israeli business daily Globes, in its own coverage of the layoffs at Redis, put the layoff count at “about 80 employees out of 300,” or roughly 27% of the local workforce, calling the round “one of the most significant” at the company in recent years. A company spokesperson told Globes, “the company does not respond to rumors and speculation,” declining to put a public rationale on the cuts. Both reports appeared on July 13, 2026. The Times of Israel said it also contacted Redis about the layoffs and was declined comment. Co-founder Shoolman stepped down from his active role last year and has since started a new startup, though he stays on the board, per Globes.
Two Pressures: A Stronger Shekel and an AI-Led Reorganization
Times of Israel framed the cuts as part of a broader Israeli tech squeeze, with two pressures stacking on the local operation: a stronger shekel and a sector-wide reorganization around AI. The shekel has gained more than 20% against the dollar over the past year and reached a 33-year high, the same outlet reported in its May 2026 coverage of Wix, Amdocs, and Rapyd’s restructuring announcements. Because Israeli tech exporters earn in dollars while paying staff and overhead in shekels, the cost gap is now structural. Wix, where Israel-based staff make up more than 60% of headcount, has run the same math in public since May, when it confirmed as many as 1,000 layoffs.
Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami put it as plainly as his own currency math, telling staff in May: “As the majority of our teams are Israel-based, a very meaningful portion of our costs is shekel-denominated, while our revenue is largely dollar-denominated. This creates a structural pressure on our ability to operate at our current scale.” The Israel Manufacturers’ Association, quoted by Times of Israel, said industry and high-tech firms would keep making these decisions on a pure economic basis “without any government action” to slow the shekel.
The AI reorg is the second pressure, and the more novel one. Wix CEO Abrahami described “the most significant shift in how companies are built since the invention of modern programming languages in the 1970s” and said the cuts at Wix were partly a move toward “AI-native ways of working.” Times of Israel reported that Israeli-founded software firm Amdocs is preparing to cut up to 10% of its global workforce, as many as 3,000 employees including hundreds in Israel, under new CEO Shimie Hortig. Rapyd told staff in May that the fintech had become “a company operated by AI,” per the same outlet’s coverage of the cuts. The shekel pressure shows up at every level of the Israeli research and development workforce, including the pay-parity math earlier coverage on US-versus-Israel salary parity has tracked.
Part of a Wider Wave
The layoffs land inside a multi-month contraction across Israeli high tech that the industry publication CTech has been cataloguing through July 2026. In May, Wix confirmed as many as 1,000 cuts, Amdocs prepared to cut up to 10% of its global workforce (as many as 3,000 employees, including hundreds in Israel), and Rapyd said it had restructured around an AI-first operating model. CTech’s tracker cites AI21 Labs’ reported 60% staff reduction, PlaxidityX’s closure of its Israeli operations under parent Aumovio, and dozens of smaller firms across the same window. The database software vendor Redis is now sitting at the same table.
| Company | Jobs cut (or scope) | Share of workforce | Announced | Driver cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wix | up to 1,000 | about 20% | May 2026 | shekel + AI reorg |
| Amdocs | up to 3,000 (incl. hundreds in Israel) | up to 10% | May 2026 | AI redesign of operating model |
| Rapyd | undisclosed | undisclosed (about 700 employees globally) | May 2026 | “operated by AI” reorg |
| AI21 Labs | reported staff reduction | reported about 60% | 2026 | focus on Maestro agent platform |
| Redis | about 75 (Times of Israel) / about 80 (Globes) | about 25% (ToI) / about 27% (Globes) of 300 Israel staff | July 2026 | shekel + AI reorg (industry context; Redis declined to comment) |
The Wix announcement, at 1,000 cuts and 20% of workforce, is the largest single layoff publicly carried out at an Israeli tech firm in 2026, and the same arithmetic is showing up across the firms named above and at smaller vendors tracked through the spring. Redis, by its own disclosed metrics, sits in a different category than those peers, with 12,000 paying customers and a January 2026 annualized recurring revenue print of $300 million, and the cuts affect a quarter of the headcount at a hub the company is simultaneously reaffirming. Redis declined to comment on the layoffs, on which teams are being reduced, and on how the cuts square with the new AI-infrastructure platform it launched earlier this year.
The Contradiction at the Center
The cuts sit inside a company at what is, on its own numbers, the strongest commercial position in its history. Redis said in January 2026 that it had passed $300 million in annualized recurring revenue, a milestone the company tied to “increasing demand for AI infrastructure” and the spread of “agentic AI systems” inside business operations. The same disclosure placed the customer count at 12,000, including about a third of the Fortune 100. Investors last valued the firm at $2 billion in its 2021 financing round, the topline number Redis’s most recent capital structure still leans on.
In parallel with the layoff plan, Redis recently signed a 10-year rental lease for new offices in Israel as part of the firm’s plans to continue the operations of its Israel development center, The Times of Israel reported. The lease and the layoff plan landed in the same week of reporting.
Both co-founders have stepped out of day-to-day management, Bengal in 2022 and Shoolman last year, with Shoolman having since founded a new startup, per Globes. The current cuts land on the largest single research and development site, in Tel Aviv, while the office lease is being extended and the annualized recurring revenue print is tied, by the company’s own framing, to the spread of AI agents into business operations. Earlier this year the company rolled out a context and memory platform for AI systems, meant to coordinate the data agents need to operate. The cuts land on the same research and development hub that just committed to a 10-year lease, with no Redis statement yet on which local teams are being reduced.
The cuts fall on the engineers closest to the historic Redis surface area, per Globes’s account of the company’s shifting product focus. Valkey has been pulling workloads off that surface area since 2024, when the Redis project forked under the Linux Foundation with AWS and Google Cloud support. The $300 million annualized recurring revenue print, the new Tel Aviv lease, and the AI-agent context platform are the parts Redis has announced publicly; the local team mix after the cuts has not been put on the page.
The Valkey Shadow Behind Restructuring
One piece of context the Globes report on the layoffs surfaces, and which the Times of Israel report does not, is the open-source reset that consumed much of the last two years at Redis. In March 2024 the company abandoned its BSD license for the SSPL, a more restrictive source-available arrangement intended to push back against cloud providers using Redis code commercially. The move “sparked sharp criticism in the developer community,” per Globes, and a Linux Foundation-backed fork called Valkey, supported by AWS, Google Cloud and others, had split off within months. Redis 8 was released in 2025 under the AGPLv3 license, with the company admitting that the SSPL move had “damaged the company’s relationship with the developer community,” per Globes. The original Redis creator Salvatore Sanfilippo, who had rejoined Redis in late 2024, helped push the relicense, as detailed in coverage of the SSPL-to-AGPL shift.
AWS had already launched discounted ElastiCache for Valkey offerings aimed at pulling workloads off Redis proper, per the same coverage. The original BSD Redis code lives inside AWS, Google Cloud, and the Valkey fork today, competing on the surface area Redis spent more than a decade building.
- About 1,300 employees globally, with about 300 in Israel (per Times of Israel, July 2026)
- $300 million in annualized recurring revenue (announced January 2026)
- $2 billion valuation in 2021 financing round, with about $350 million raised in total
- 12,000 paying customers, including about a third of the Fortune 100
- Founders Ofer Bengal and Yiftach Shoolman incorporated the company in 2011 in Tel Aviv
The company’s largest research and development center is in Tel Aviv, the same hub signing a 10-year lease and now cutting about 25% of its local headcount. The company’s stated growth driver for the new annualized recurring revenue figure is “increasing demand for AI infrastructure,” while the legacy Redis surface area competes with AWS, Google Cloud, and the Valkey fork for the workloads it once owned. Redis declined to comment, in Globes’s words, on the local headcount mix going forward.
Where Redis Goes From Here in Tel Aviv
The Tel Aviv center is staying put per the 10-year lease and the company’s reaffirmation of “plans to continue the operations of its Israel development center,” alongside the January 2026 annualized recurring revenue print. What changes is the mix of engineering work inside the local research and development site.
The product the company rolled out earlier this year, a context-and-memory platform for AI agents, sits on top of a Redis core that customers and competing forks both consume elsewhere. Wix framed the same pivot, in its own reduction a few weeks earlier, as moving to “AI-native ways of working” while becoming “a faster, leaner, and flatter organization.” Redis has declined to put a public rationale on the cuts, on which engineering functions are being trimmed, or on whether the AI-platform work is what the company is now staffing toward. The same week as the layoffs, the company signed a 10-year lease on Israeli offices, putting both moves inside a single week of reporting.
