Our story

How we Started

KUNGFU.AI was founded in 2017 by co-founders Stephen Straus, Steve Meier, Ron Green, and Zhangzhang (ZZ) Si.
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When serial entrepreneur and former VC Stephen Straus considered his next business venture, the idea for the company blossomed.

Based on his experience as a venture capitalist through the Dot.com boom and bust in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he sensed real parallels between the Internet and the unfolding of the AI revolution.

An amazing opportunity struck him — build an industry-defining professional services firm to help companies lead in the new AI economy. Through networking, he was referred to co-founder Steve Meier, who had a strong sales and marketing background, and technical co-founders Ron Green and Zhangzhang (ZZ) Si, who both have deep machine learning domain expertise.

2017
2025
January 2017
KUNGFU.AI Launches
January 2018
Turns away first client for ethical reasons
May 2018
First AI for Good Open Office Hours
July 2018
Began first major client project with Keller Williams
August 2018
Co-founder team complete
August 2019
Culture Club founded
January 2020
First ethics charter is drafted
SEPTEMBER 2021
Earned Google Partner Specialization in Machine Learning
April 2021
Launched our Strategy Practice
September 2022
Formed our Data Science Team
January 2023
Launched Lab Day
August 2023
Announced Dr. ZZ Si as our first ever Distinguished Machine Learning Engineer
September 2023
KUNGFU.AI Government Solutions team signs first prime contract
January 2024
Launched our podcast, Hidden Layers
May 2024
Won Inc.’s Best Places to Work Award
May 2025
Won Inc Best Workplaces for the 3rd time
June 2025
Our client, Clairity, becomes first FDA-Authorized AI platform for Breast Cancer Prediction
August 2025
Won Austin Business Journal’s Best Places to Work Award for a 5th time

Since 2017, KUNGFU.AI has flourished in terms of people, revenue, clients, and areas of focus.

We stay faithful to our mission: create transformative value through innovative and responsible AI solutions.  

KAI the mascot

Our Mascot

KUNGFU.AI’s robot didn’t always have a name, but as our mascot, he deserved a strong identity.

To find one, our employees entered popular names into a tournament-style bracket. With the power of democracy and multiple voting rounds, the robot was named Kai.

This name fit for several reasons: Kai abbreviates KUNGFU.AI, Kai is a Chinese character that means “to begin,” which fits how we help our clients begin their AI journeys, and Kai acknowledges our Co-Founder Zhangzhang (ZZ) Si’s homeland and culture. 

Our Team

Since 2017, KUNGFU.AI has grown to include more than 40 team members—check out the full team.

Meet Our Team
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Our Clients

Our client base is always growing and we’re proud to collaborate with these companies.
Let's Work Together

Our Values

Our values were thoughtfully developed to guide what we prioritize and how we interact with each other, our clients, and our world.
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Inventive

We believe creative thinking leads to unique, adaptive solutions that deliver the best value to clients.
We foster creative thinking by empowering experimentation and collaboration, taking risks, and valuing progress over perfection.
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Caring

We believe that caring for our people, clients, community and society is central to humanity and our company.
We are committed to building and maintaining a culture and client solutions that are human-centered and we consider the impact our work and our choices have and make the hard decisions.
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Inquisitive

We believe learning is fundamental to growing as people and our shared success.
We know our world is changing fast and that only an environment of vulnerability and curiosity will allow us and our clients to keep up.
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Open

We believe excellence and quality stems from a breadth of perspectives and everyone is given equal opportunity to share, learn and grow.
We strive to be intentionally inclusive and deliberately diverse so we all have an equitable opportunity in a new age. We are committed to teaching others and making our tools and learning accessible.
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Trustworthy

We believe that trust underpins all that we do and needs to be earned.
We are committed to building long-term, trusting relationships with our clients, team and our communities through reliability, transparency, and integrity.