Palona
Catering & Food Services · AI Agents
$30Mtotal raised · 2 rounds on record
5open roles
$20Mlatest round · Venture round · Aug 2026 · 2 mo ago
1backers · Fusion Fund
Overview
Palona is the AI operating layer for physical businesses, proven first in restaurants. Capture demand, convert revenue, and learn where growth is next.
How Palona hires
Truth index
B 75/100
Ghost roles
0%
Stale roles
100%
Reposted roles
0%
Palona scores B on the Alion truth index (A is best, E worst), measured over 4 open roles re-checked against its own hiring board: 0% look like ghost listings, 100% have gone stale and 0% are the same role posted again. It measures how much of what this employer publishes turns into a real, finite search - not the employer as a workplace. How the index is computed
Funding and backers
Total raised
$30M
2 rounds on record
Latest round
$20M
Venture round · Aug 2026 · 2 mo ago
Team
51-200
employees, estimated range
Hiring now
6
open roles
Backers
1
Fusion Fund
The money's age
Fresh money
2 months since the last round · hiring slowed
Momentum
45/100
a new city, in the news, fresh money
Last sign of life
1 mo ago
a posting or a news item
The story so fareach stage dated by its source: the company's releases, the press, registers, filings
Aug 17
Raised a round Venture round $20M · SiliconANGLE
Aug 17
Launched Palona AI Unveils the Multimodal AI Operating Layer for Physical Businesses · PRNewswire
Nov 12, 2025
Partnership Palona AI and Goodcall Partner to Power "Goodcall for Restaurants" with Advanced Voice AI · businesswire.com
Jun 10, 2025
Launched Palona Launches Restaurant AI: New Technology and Team Dedicated to the Unique Needs of the Restaurant Industry · markets.financialcontent.com
Jan 23, 2025
Raised a round Seed $10M · adweek
2024
Founded
Tractionpublic signals, read monthly
Web presence
top 6%
of 133.2M domains by links, Common Crawl
Funding rounds
| Round | Date | Amount | Investors | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Venture round | Aug 2026 | $20M | — | SiliconANGLE |
| Seed | Jan 2025 | $10M | — | adweek |
Registers and programsofficial lists and records that name the company
| Legal entity | Proactive AI Lab, Inc. | SEC Form D |
Founders and leadersfrom filings, registers and the company's site
Maria ZhangExecutive Officer, DirectorSEC Form D
Backed byfrom the funds' portfolios and accelerator catalogs
Investors in similar startupsfunds that back the companies most like this one
Similar startupsby what they do, their industry and backers
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Dojo app allows you to book or queue at restaurants near you. And we’ve teamed up with top restaurants to get you seated.
Jobs
≈ $142k – $316k per year (Estimated) · Equity · In office · Full-Time · 3+ years exp · PhD · Los Altos · New York · Toronto
Python
Fine-tuning
Quantization
Multimodal AI
Knowledge Distillation
Computer Vision
VLM
PyTorch
SFT
Embodied AI
Model Distillation
Machine Learning
Apply
≈ $136k – $302k per year (Estimated) · Equity · In office · Full-Time · 3+ years exp · Bachelor's Degree · Los Altos · New York · Toronto
Python
JavaScript
TypeScript
FastAPI
Databases
PostgreSQL
AI/ML
Multimodal AI
Computer Vision
LLM
LiveKit
LLM Guardrails
Voice Agents
Frontend
Next.js
React.js
DevOps
AWS
Apply
≈ $133k – $296k per year (Estimated) · Equity · In office · Full-Time · 3+ years exp · Bachelor's Degree · Los Altos · New York · Toronto
JavaScript
TypeScript
SQL
Next.js
React.js
Apply
≈ $143k – $317k per year (Estimated) · Equity · In office · Full-Time · 3+ years exp · Bachelor's Degree · Los Altos · New York · Toronto
Python
Fine-tuning
JAX
Multimodal AI
Knowledge Distillation
AI Agents
Speech Recognition
PyTorch
Hugging Face
Post-training
Text-to-Speech
Structured Outputs
LLM Evaluation
LLM Guardrails
Model Distillation
Machine Learning
Apply
≈ $108k – $238k per year (Estimated) · Equity · In office · Full-Time · 3+ years exp · Bachelor's Degree · Los Altos · New York · Toronto
Python
AI Agents
LLM
DevOps
Terraform
OpenTofu
Datadog
Azure
CI/CD
AWS
Docker
AWS Lambda
SLI/SLO/SLA
Amazon ECS
API Gateway
Apply
Growth
Hiring Momentum
48/100
Stable
Open positions
6
0 opened / 0 closed in 30 days
ATS activity
Every ~8 hours
Today
Hiring Dynamics
0%
Hiring Focus
The percentage next to each role is its share of the company's job openings over the last 90 days; the arrow shows the shift versus the previous period.
AI/ML
50% ▼
Early Careers
50% ▲
Activity Timeline
New location: Toronto
Nov 2026
New location: New York
Nov 2026
Added SLI/SLO/SLA to stack
Oct 2026
Added ROS2 to stack
Oct 2026
Added ROS to stack
Oct 2026
Added PyTorch C++ to stack
Oct 2026
Added Physical AI to stack
Oct 2026
Added Perception to stack
Oct 2026
Added Motion Planning to stack
Oct 2026
Added C++ to stack
Oct 2026
People
Maria Zhang
Executive Officer, Director
Flora Dong
Director
Names and roles come from public filings, company registers and the company's own site. Is this you? Correct or remove · How we handle this data
Tech stack
Technologies named in job postings at Palona over the last 12 months, by layer, with the share of postings for each.
Technologies in use
48
Postings analysed
6
Stack modernity
80/100AI adopter
Languages
Python
TypeScript
JavaScript
C++
Frameworks & libraries
PyTorch
React.js
Next.js
JAX
Databases
PostgreSQL
Cloud & platforms
AWS
API Gateway
AWS Lambda
Amazon ECS
AI & ML
LLM
VLM
Sign in to see how your skills match this stack
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Full Palona tech stack
48 technologies · by team · pay by technology · changes · similar stacks
Connections
List
Graph
Found in company registers, site code, DNS and hiring. Each connection shows how sure we are and the evidence, with its source and date.
Shared investors
Fusion FundVia a fund
Click a company to open it. Dashed lines are likely connections. The second step of the network is part of the Pro plan.
Owner
Same company
Same group
Likely
News
She Helped Instagram Fight Back Against TikTok With AI. Now She's Using the Same Playbook on a Problem Every Business Owner Knows.
She built AI for some of the biggest companies in the world. Then she decided restaurants needed it more.
Read more
Report
Palona AI Expands Beyond Voice Ordering with New Restaurant Operations Platform and $20 Million in Funding
Palona AI has launched what it calls a multimodal AI operating layer for physical businesses, beginning with restaurants and positioning the technology as something broader than another voice-ordering system. The launch comes as Palona closes ...
Read more
Report
Palona AI Reaches $20 Million In Funding As Restaurant Deployments Show 20% Revenue Growth
Palona AI has completed its Series A financing, bringing total funding to $20 million as the company expands a multimodal AI operating layer designed to connect customer demand with real-time operations inside physical businesses. The total includes conve
Read more
Report
Palona AI debuts AI platform for restaurants after $20M funding round
Palona AI has launched what it calls a multimodal AI operating layer for physical businesses, debuting the technology in restaurants before expanding to other brick-and-mortar sectors.
Read more
Report
Palona raises $20M in funding to bring AI automation to brick-and-mortar businesses
Palona raises $20M in funding to bring AI automation to brick-and-mortar businesses - SiliconANGLE
Read more
Report
Palona AI Unveils the Multimodal AI Operating Layer for Physical Businesses
/PRNewswire/ -- Palona AI unveiled its multimodal AI operating layer for physical businesses, proven first in restaurants. Palona works with operators...
Read more
Report
Palona goes vertical, launches Vision, Workflow: 4 key lessons for AI builders
Palona goes vertical, launches Vision, Workflow features: 4 key lessons for AI builders
Read more
Report
Report
Designing Multimodal Interfaces For A Human-Centered Future
Multimodal interfaces that combine voice, vision, text, gesture and environmental context are the next step in making technology feel less like a tool and more like a collaborator.
Read more
Report
Choosing Which AI Model Is Right For Your Restaurant
While AI can transform customer ordering experiences, success depends entirely on selecting the right model for your specific operation.
Read more
Report
Show more news
Offices
Where the company hires and what each office is for
Cities
4
Hiring now
3
Countries
2
Busiest office
Los Altos
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Headquarters
Builds here
Office with open vacancies
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Palo Alto
United States
HQ
Palona
3000 El Camino Real, Building 4, Suite 200, Palo Alto, 94306
Los Altos
United States
Engineering / R&D
6 open roles 2 posted in 90 days 83% engineering 10-50 est. staff
hires for AI/ML, DevOps, Early Careers
New York
United States
Engineering / R&D
5 open roles 1 posted in 90 days 100% engineering 10-50 est. staff
hires for AI/ML, DevOps
Toronto
Canada
Engineering / R&D
5 open roles 1 posted in 90 days 100% engineering 10-50 est. staff
hires for AI/ML, DevOps