Upwork ECONOMIC

Supply Chain & Sourcing Relationships

Direct supplier relationships. No public evidence identified of any commercial relationship between Upwork Inc. and Israeli agricultural aggregators or exporters such as Mehadrin, Hadiklaim, Galilee Export or Agrexco successors, and the FY2025 Form 10-K (filed 2026) describes an online work marketplace hosted on Amazon Web Services whose retrieved sections contain no mention of Israel, Israeli or Gaza and no physical-goods sourcing ¹.

Importer of record structure. No public evidence identified of any importer-of-record entity; the subsidiary schedule in Exhibit 21.1 to the FY2025 10-K lists entities in Delaware, California, Canada, the Netherlands and Ireland and none in Israel ².

Seasonal sourcing patterns. No public evidence identified of recurring seasonal procurement from Israeli suppliers ¹.

Third-party and indirect sourcing. No public evidence identified of Israeli-origin goods reaching Upwork through distributors, resellers or white-label arrangements, and no Upwork-disclosed count of Israel-based freelancers or clients was found in the retrieved filings ¹. A February 2020 Calcalist report on a Payoneer survey states that Israeli freelancers averaged $42 per hour against a $21 global average, but that article does not mention Upwork and is more than five years old [pre-2020 context; status for Upwork unknown] ³.

Product Origin, Labeling & Regulatory Compliance

Settlement-origin products. No public evidence identified of any NGO investigation, regulatory citation or customs finding concerning settlement-origin goods sold by Upwork, which operates a services marketplace rather than selling goods ¹. The Who Profits company directory is searchable by involvement category and settlement, and a search for “upwork” on it displayed only the first 20 alphabetical entries (A. Barkan and Co. through Agrotop) of about 24 result pages, none of them Upwork, so the remaining pages were not read ^{4, 5}. The AFSC Investigate database holds 288 companies and mutual funds, and the page retrieved displayed five sample entries (Chevron, Palantir, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Logitech) with no Upwork entry shown, without running a company-specific search ⁶.

Labeling compliance. No public evidence identified of country-of-origin labeling advisories or enforcement actions involving Upwork ¹.

Corporate labeling policy. No public evidence identified of an Upwork policy on sourcing or labeling goods from occupied or contested territories ¹.

Investment, Capital & Financial Exposure

Foreign direct investment. Exhibit 21.1 lists subsidiaries incorporated in Delaware (including Ascen Inc., Ascen Workforce, LLC, Elance LLC, Lifted Solutions LLC, Lifted Talent Group LLC, Payment Escrow Inc., UPW Holdco, Inc., Upwork Services LLC and Upwork Payments Inc.), California (Upwork Global LLC), Canada (Ascen Workforce Canada Inc.), the Netherlands (Bubty B.V. and Tallance B.V.) and Ireland (Elance Limited), with no Israeli subsidiary ². No public evidence identified of acquired Israeli operating companies, Israeli factories, data centers, logistics hubs or real-estate holdings held by Upwork ^{2, 1}.

Acquisitions on record. The FY2025 10-K refers to the acquisitions of Bubty B.V. and Ascen Inc., with XBRL dates of 27 June 2025 and 18 August 2025 respectively, and to Objective AI, Inc. in November 2024 ¹. TechCrunch reported on 6 August 2025 that Upwork had acquired Bubty, a workforce management platform, and signed a definitive agreement for Ascen, a global compliance and employer-of-record company, and gave no price or location for either ⁷. Wikipedia lists Headroom (from 2023), ObjectiveAI (2024), and Bubty and Ascen (2025) as Upwork acquisitions and does not mention Israel ⁸. The location of Objective AI is not established in the retrieved sources, and Objective AI, Inc. does not appear in the Exhibit 21.1 subsidiary schedule ².

R&D and innovation centres. No public evidence identified of Upwork research facilities, innovation labs or accelerator programmes in Israel; the 10-K describes a hybrid model with team members distributed around the world and connected through corporate offices ¹.

Parent and beneficial ownership. Upwork Inc. is a publicly traded Nasdaq company, and Wikipedia records a 2024 activist campaign against it ⁸. Invezz reported on 13 September 2024 that Engine Capital announced a 3.5% stake in Upwork and was pushing for board changes, linking that figure to Engine’s letter to the board; no Schedule 13D was retrieved, and the 3.5% figure replaces the earlier approximate “about 4%” in this audit ⁹. A Schedule 13G/A reports BlackRock, Inc. beneficially owning 18,796,623 shares (15.2%) at an event date of 30 June 2026 ¹⁰. A Schedule 13G/A reports Vanguard Capital Management beneficially owning 6,164,469 shares (4.93%) at an event date of 30 September 2026 ¹¹. A Schedule 13G/A reports The Vanguard Group at zero shares as of 13 March 2026, attributed to a 12 January 2026 internal realignment after which certain Vanguard subsidiaries report separately ¹². These filings are passive-investor reports and show no controlling holder; no public evidence identified in them of Israel-specific exposure ^{11, 12, 10}.

Portfolio and fund exposure. No public evidence identified of Upwork holdings in Israeli-domiciled companies, Israeli sovereign bonds or Israel-focused funds ¹.

Act record.

• Acquisition of Bubty B.V.: acting entity Upwork Inc. (legal parent per Exhibit 21.1); beneficiary Bubty B.V., a Netherlands company; channels are the SEC-hosted FY2025 10-K and Exhibit 21.1 on sec.gov and TechCrunch on techcrunch.com; earliest observation 6 August 2025 (TechCrunch) and latest the FY2025 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025; status completed and continuing as a listed subsidiary, with no Israel link identified ^{2, 1, 7}.
• Agreement to acquire Ascen Inc.: acting entity Upwork Inc.; beneficiary Ascen Inc. (Delaware) and Ascen Workforce Canada Inc. (Canada); channels sec.gov and techcrunch.com; earliest observation 6 August 2025 (agreement announced) and latest the FY2025 10-K; status completed, since Ascen entities appear in the subsidiary schedule, with no Israel link identified ^{2, 1, 7}.
• Engine Capital’s public letter to Upwork’s board: acting entity Engine Capital LP (the name as given in coverage of the letter, legal-entity detail not otherwise established); recipient Upwork’s board of directors and the investing public; channel a press release carried by Invezz on invezz.com, dated 13 September 2024 (earliest and latest retrieved observation); stake stated as 3.5%; whether Engine still holds shares is unknown at the research date and no later Engine filing was retrieved ⁹.

Operational Presence & Market Activity

Physical footprint. The FY2025 10-K gives the corporate headquarters as Palo Alto, California, where Upwork leases approximately 21,615 square feet under a lease expiring September 2032 ¹. No public evidence identified of any office, support centre, warehouse or retail location in Israel or in occupied territories ¹.

Employment and tax. The 10-K reports approximately 630 employees as of 31 December 2025, plus about 1,600 independent team members engaged during 2025, and customers in over 180 countries ¹. OfficeChai reported on 8 May 2026 that CEO Hayden Brown announced cuts of about 25% of the workforce on 7 May 2026, with no headcount or work locations given and no Israel mention ¹³. No public evidence identified of Israeli tax registration, Israeli employees or Israeli regulatory status for Upwork; the 10-K’s tax-by-jurisdiction note was not seen in the portions read ^{2, 1}.

Market positioning. The 10-K text retrieved did not characterise Israel as a market; it reports that approximately 71% of 2025 gross services volume came from U.S. clients and that approximately 25% of GSV in 2025 and 2024 and approximately 26% in 2023 was generated from U.S. talent, with India and the Philippines the next-largest talent geographies ¹. No public evidence identified of a specific characterisation of Israel in investor materials ¹. A predecessor entity, Elance, announced on 18 October 2012 [pre-2020] that it was launching a presence in Israel and adapting its product for Israeli users, and a quoted Elance European vice president said Israel was among the platform’s top seven hiring markets; the article gives no office location or launch date, and whether the presence continued after the 2015 rename to Upwork is unknown ¹⁴.

Gaza-based freelancers and platform role. An Atlantic Council issue brief dated 1 September 2026 describes Upwork and Freelancer.com as the largest international platforms on which Gazan freelancers operate, notes around two thousand Gazans registered on Upwork as of 2018 [pre-2020], and quotes a freelancer who paid Upwork’s 10% commission plus currency-exchange fees ¹⁵. The brief reports account closures without appeal for Fiverr, not Upwork, and its Israel-related discussion concerns telecommunications and payment restrictions generally ¹⁵.

Settlement nexus and constructive notice. No public evidence identified of operations, listings, sales or services in or to West Bank, East Jerusalem or Golan settlements, or of any Israel-related activity continuing after the 19 July 2024 ICJ advisory opinion or the November 2024 ICC warrants ^{2, 1}. The 10-K describes anti-money-laundering and sanctions compliance policies designed to comply with U.S. economic sanctions laws, without naming Israel ¹. The 26 September 2025 OHCHR database update lists 158 enterprises from 11 countries and, per Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, names Booking.com as the only online platform and no freelance companies ¹⁶. The National reports that Expedia Group, Booking Holdings and Airbnb remain on the list and does not name Upwork ¹⁷. A mirror of the database on OpenSanctions reports 212 entities, a different count that was not reconciled with the 158 figure ¹⁸. The UN Special Rapporteur’s report A/HRC/59/23 is published as a UN document dated July 2025, and its body text could not be searched for Upwork in this research, so no finding either way is stated ¹⁹. The UN page for the 26 September 2025 database update was reachable only as a headline ²⁰.

Corporate Structure & Foundational Ties

Founding and incorporation history. Wikipedia records Elance as founded in 1998 by Bernard Sheth and Srini Anumolu in Jersey City and moved to Sunnyvale in December 1999, oDesk as founded in 2003 by Odysseas Tsatalos and Stratis Karamanlakis working between the U.S. and Greece, a merger announced 18 December 2013, a rename to Upwork in 2015 and an IPO filing on 3 October 2018 [pre-2020; the entity continues as Upwork Inc.] ⁸. The article does not mention Israel ⁸. A low-quality website asserts, without citing any source, that Upwork was founded by Israelis (Ilan Zechory and Ofer Tiger), employs mostly Israel-based staff and is backed by Israeli investors; that claim is not supported by the SEC filings, which show Delaware incorporation, a Palo Alto headquarters, approximately 630 employees and no Israeli subsidiary ^{2, 1, 21}.

Headquarters and domicile. The FY2025 10-K cover lists Delaware as state of incorporation and 530 Lytton Avenue, Suite 301, Palo Alto, California as the principal executive office, with a mailing address in West Valley City, Utah ¹. No public evidence identified of Israeli tax residency, Preferred Technology Enterprise status, dual or legacy Israeli headquarters, or Israeli beneficial ownership ^{2, 1}.

State and institutional linkages. No public evidence identified of state ownership, government board appointees, Israeli government contracts or critical-national-infrastructure designation for Upwork ^{1, 22}.

Structural governance features. The 2026 proxy statement lists Thomas Layton as independent Chairperson, Hayden Brown as President and CEO (not independent), and directors Gary Steele, Kevin Harvey, Glenn Kelman, Leela Srinivasan, Anilu Vazquez-Ubarri and Dana L. Evan, with Claire Bramley and David Lissy as nominees; no public evidence identified of golden shares, founder shares or charter provisions tying Upwork to the Israeli state ²². The 2025 proxy records that Steele chairs the compensation committee, having succeeded Gregory Gretsch in April 2024 ²³.

Named-entity record (searched by name).

• Upwork Inc., the target: searched for Israel subsidiaries, offices and listings in OHCHR, Who Profits and AFSC sources, none found in what was retrievable ^{2, 4, 6, 16}.
• Hayden Brown, President and CEO since January 2020: searched by name with Israel, Gaza, October 7, reservist and hostage terms, no Upwork statement on those topics found, and the May 2026 workforce reduction was the only statement surfaced ^{22, 8, 13}.
• Thomas Layton, independent Chairperson since 2014, former CEO of OpenTable and Metaweb and former oDesk chairperson: searched by name with Israel, defense and settlement terms, none found ²².
• Kevin Harvey, director since 2014, Founder and General Partner of Benchmark Capital since 1995 and former oDesk director: searched with Israel investment terms; Globes reported on 12 January 2010 [pre-2020] that Benchmark ran a dedicated Israel fund since 2001 with Israeli general partners and would not raise a third, but no source retrieved ties Harvey personally to an Israeli investment, and current status is unknown ^{22, 24}.
• Gary Steele, Upwork director since 2018 and CEO of Shield AI, a defense technology company: Shield AI’s own release dated 12 March 2025 announced that he would join as CEO on 13 May 2025 and join its board, which is consistent with the 2026 proxy’s “since May 2025”, and the 12 March 2025 date in Wikipedia is the announcement date rather than a conflicting start date ^{22, 25, 26}. Washington Technology reported the same announcement date and a start “slated to take effect on May 13”, and neither it nor Breaking Defense mentions Israel or Upwork ^{27, 28}. Searched for a Shield AI Israeli defense contract, none found, and the Wikipedia article on Shield AI does not mention Israel ^{26, 28}.
• Glenn Kelman, director: searched by name with Israel, none found; he announced on 13 January 2026 that he was stepping down as Redfin CEO, with an advisory role until 1 April 2026 ^{22, 29}.
• David Lissy (nominee), Dana L. Evan, Leela Srinivasan, Claire Bramley and Anilu Vazquez-Ubarri: searched by name or covered by the proxy biographies, which mention no Israel affiliation in the portions retrieved, and searches for Evan and Srinivasan returned nothing relevant ²².
• BlackRock, Inc. (15.2% holder), Vanguard Capital Management (4.93%) and The Vanguard Group (zero after realignment): their Schedule 13G/A filings carry no Israel disclosure and no separate Israel search was run ^{11, 12, 10}.
• Engine Capital LP (activist holder of 3.5% in September 2024): letter coverage retrieved contains no Israel content ⁹.
• Bubty B.V. (Netherlands), Ascen Inc. (Delaware), Ascen Workforce Canada Inc. (Canada) and Objective AI, Inc.: searched for Israeli ownership or operations, none found, and Objective AI’s location was not established ^{2, 8, 7}.
• Elance (predecessor of Upwork, with Elance Limited in Ireland and Elance LLC in Delaware as current subsidiaries): the 2012 Israel launch announcement is the only Israel-linked act retrieved, status after 2015 unknown ^{2, 14}.

Profit Repatriation & Economic Contribution

Revenue attribution. No public evidence identified of Upwork-disclosed revenue attributed to Israel in the retrieved sections of the FY2025 10-K, which discloses client-side and talent-side GSV shares for the United States but not Israel ¹.

Profit flows. No public evidence identified of profit flowing into Israel through Israeli-domiciled ownership, or of Israel-sourced profit repatriated to a foreign parent, because Upwork has no Israeli subsidiary and no Israeli controlling owner in the retrieved filings ^{2, 11, 12, 10}. The 10-K notes that taxing authorities may challenge Upwork’s intercompany pricing methodologies, without naming Israel ¹.

Economic ecosystem role. No public evidence identified of an industry report or government designation describing Upwork as a sector anchor, key employer or infrastructure provider in the Israeli economy ¹. The Payoneer-based Calcalist report of February 2020 characterises Israeli freelancers generally, not Upwork, and is more than five years old ³. The 2012 Elance announcement is the only characterisation of Israel as a hiring market retrieved and is [pre-2020] ¹⁴.