Palona AI Closes Series A at $20M for Restaurant Automation
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Palona AI has wrapped up its Series A, taking total funding to $20 million. That figure includes converted SAFEs.
The investor group covers Ardenwood Ventures, CrimsonOx, UpHonest, Turbo, Llama Ventures, Neo, Fusion Fund, Defy and Maynard Webb, plus other institutional, strategic and individual backers.
Palona builds what it describes as a multimodal AI operating layer for physical businesses, linking customer demand to what is actually happening on the floor in real time. Restaurants are the first market. Operators and customers on the list include Din Tai Fung, Mountain Mike’s Pizza, Giordano’s, Rooted Hospitality and Cali BBQ, and deployments have been associated with 20 percent revenue growth.
The company is incorporated as Proactive AI Lab Inc. and came out of stealth in January 2025 with a $10 million seed round. It works from Palo Alto. The company is based in California, and restaurant operators make up its customer base at this stage.
Management sees the underlying technology reaching well past food service, into any physical business where customer interactions and frontline operations have to stay in sync.
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