Facebook Israel is expanding its local operations. Sources inform ''Globes'' that the company rented four floors in Tel Aviv’s Rothschild 22 Tower shortly before the beginning of Operation Protective Edge. The building is owned by Aviv Group, which is controlled by Doron Aviv and Dafna Harlev, and Lahav LR Real Estate Ltd. (TASE: LAHAV). The floors leased by Facebook are in the middle of the 29-story building, and span 3,500 square meters. According to estimates, Facebook is paying roughly NIS 120 per square meter. The deal includes some parking spaces as well.
In October of last year, Facebook bought Israeli company Onavo for $150 million and established its Israeli R&D center in Onavo’s offices in the Ramat Gan Diamond Exchange district. In February, Facebook decided to open a sales center as well, and to expand its office space. In recent years, more and more start-up companies, which are Facebook Israel’s biggest advertisers, have begun operating on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. According to sources, this fact is directly linked to Facebook’s decision to select Rothschild Boulevard as its new location.
In addition, sources inform ''Globes'' that information security company Palo Alto Networks, owned by Nir Zuk (a former Check Point executive), recently leased 3 floors in the adjacent Discount Bank Building from Weiss Group’s Pandom. The lease is for nine years, at NIS 5 million a year, including finishing. These are floors 24-26 in the Discount Building, spanning 3,200 square meters, which were home to DS Investment House until six months ago, when the company merged with Meitav DS Holdings Ltd. (TASE:MTDS) and relocated to B’nei Brak.
Palo Alto Networks, which trades on Nasdaq with a $6 billion market cap, recently acquired Israeli Cyvera, which operates in Tel Aviv and San Francisco. The new offices will also serve the new employees who are joining the company following the acquisition. Cyvera recently raised $11 million. The company is owned by Battery Ventures and Blumberg Capital.
Another major start-up real-estate deal in the area took place a year ago, when Levenstein and Pandom leased an entire building on Lilienblum 28 in Tel Aviv to Israeli start-up ironSource, one of the largest online software distributors. Lilienblum 28 is a 6-story, 2,500 square meter building, with 88 parking spaces. The five-year lease was signed for NIS 130 per square meter, fully furnished, and an additional 400 square meter commercial space at NIS 250 per square meter. ironSource also leased 44 parking spaces for a total of NIS 46,000 per month. Iron Source is paying NIS 450,000 per month overall.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 8, 2014
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