Maria Zhang is the Co-Founder and CEO of Palona AI, a Palo Alto-based startup building emotionally intelligent AI agents for restaurants, hospitality, and direct-to-consumer brands.

Maria studied Computer Science at Tsinghua University and built an exceptional career leading engineering teams at Google, Meta, LinkedIn, and Tinder, and was named one of the Top 100 Women in Tech to Watch.

A serial entrepreneur at heart, Maria previously founded Alike, a restaurant and entertainment recommendation app acquired by Yahoo in 2013, where she later received the Master Inventor Award in 2015.

At Palona AI, Maria led the $10M seed round in January 2025 backed by UpHonest Capital, Fusion Fund, NEO Investment Partners, and angel investor Maynard Webb, and has secured early clients including Wyze and Pizza My Heart.

Palona AI's proprietary multi-agent, multimodal platform delivers hyper-personalized customer experiences 24/7, helping consumer brands boost sales, grow cart sizes, and build lasting customer loyalty at scale.