Palona AI Raises $20M for Physical Business Automation

Palona AI has closed a $20 million Series A round led by Ardenwood Ventures to expand its AI operating layer for brick-and-mortar businesses. The startup, which launched from stealth in January 2025, has built a multimodal agentic system that uses vision AI and object detection to monitor physical spaces and coordinate real-time actions across teams, software and AI agents. Initially targeting restaurants, Palona offers tools for revenue expansion, intelligence and operations, including agents that handle missed calls and route orders to point-of-sale systems. Deployed at Cali BBQ, the technology reportedly boosted Father's Day revenue by over 20% year-over-year. The company plans to expand into hotels, shopping malls and entertainment venues.