The Challenge
JFrog came to us through a referral from Coralogix, another of our clients.
Their requirements changed during onboarding. JFrog's headcount was growing so fast that the bigger space they were already searching for wasn't going to be big enough either: they would have outgrown it within the first year. We rewrote the brief with them from scratch, this time looking at bigger, grander buildings built to serve them for at least three years.
The search itself came with its own difficulties. JFrog's international HQ isn't based in the UK, which made viewings hard to arrange and meant a lot of the market education fell to us: not just how a space looked and felt, but where it sat in London, what was nearby, and what the transport links were like. We leaned on video walkthroughs and detailed information on local amenities to close that gap.
How We Solved It
We put together a wide range of options: conventional leases, managed space, and subleases. JFrog wanted something high calibre and grand, which narrowed the shortlist to two buildings.
We proposed a sublease at the Hylo Building. The previous tenant no longer needed the space, and the sublease structure meant JFrog could inherit roughly £4 million worth of the investment already made in it, rather than build out from scratch. That included around £480,000 of furniture and £1.8 million put into the design of the space.
Subleases are legally complex, and this was the hardest part of the deal. We needed landlord approval for the existing tenant to sublease, and had to work through the legal structure that would let that happen, while also negotiating on the outgoing tenant's side for the best possible rate. The existing tenant pushed hard against reducing the rate, but we secured a £10 per square foot reduction for JFrog against the asking rate, plus five months rent free: one of the best rates in London for a building of that standard.
We had around three weeks to close the deal, working with legal teams on all three sides at once: the landlord, the outgoing tenant, and JFrog. We acted as JFrog’s legal advisor throughout the negotiation.
Why This Needed A Broker
A three-way sublease negotiation, landlord approval, and an outgoing tenant negotiating hard on price, done in three weeks, isn't something a company finds its way into alone. It takes a broker who understands sublease structures well enough to negotiate them, the right landlord relationships to get sign-off quickly, and the market knowledge to know a multi-million-pound fit-out was on the table in the first place. Without us, this deal would not have happened.
The Takeaway
JFrog's requirement grew mid-search, its decision-makers weren't in the country, and the deal it landed depended on getting three parties into agreement inside three weeks. None of that is something a business finds by searching listings on its own.
That's what a broker adds to a move like this: the ability to see a deal that doesn't exist yet, and the relationships and legal know-how to make it real before the opportunity closes.
.avif)
