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TechCrunch
2 days ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Tailor, a ‘headless' ERP startup, raises $22M Series A
Tailor, a San Francisco- and Tokyo-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform, has raised $22 million in a Series A funding round. Investors include ANRI, JIC Venture Growth Investments (JIC VGI), New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Spiral Capital and Y Combinator. ERP systems typically come with a single interface that includes all the necessary functions, but this can be inflexible and restrict customization options. In contrast, a 'headless' ERP system separates the front end (user interface) from the back end (ERP core), co-founder and CEO of Tailor, Yo Shibata, told TechCrunch. The backend manages key functions of the ERP system, like inventory management and accounting, allowing for independent selection or development of the front end. This setup lets Tailor's system, Omakase, allow AI agents to securely access its ERP system via API to automate tasks such as summarizing customer histories or triggering workflows, he added. The industry has many competitors, including giant legacy companies such as SAP and Oracle, as well as vertical SaaS tools like Crater and Stitch. Shibata believes Tailor's position as a 'headless,' highly customizable option will give it a competitive advantage. 'As coding becomes increasingly commoditized and AI agents handle more of the operational load – already around 50% and growing toward 90% — businesses want systems that can be composed, not hardcoded,' Shibata said. 'We believe the future of ERP is modular, programmable, and built for a world where humans and machines collaborate seamlessly.' Tailor's product, available in the U.S. and Japan, originally targeted retail and e-commerce customers as these industries face specific challenges arising from dynamic supply chains, market expansion, and uncertain geopolitical factors, co-founder and CEO of Tailor, Yo Shibata, told TechCrunch. Omakase automates workflows and manages businesses' operations like inventory, fulfillment, finance, purchasing, and omnichannel management. But the company is now receiving a high volume of inquiries from other sectors like B2B and expanding its services to non-e-commerce or retail companies as well, Shibata said. Techcrunch event Save $450 on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW 'B2B operations are far more complex than B2C businesses, as they involve not only selling inventories but also managing future orders, advanced orders, and more,' Shibata said. '[They] might want to personalize some of their product lineups, which will then add more complexity to the operational side.' Shibata, a former McKinsey consultant and serial entrepreneur, and Misato Takahashi, CTO of Tailor, founded Tailor in 2021. The startup has grown to approximately 50 employees in Japan, the U.S., and several other countries as of today, up from just 10 in 2022. As for its long-term plan, the CEO said, 'Rather than offering a rigid, all-in-one suite, we provide a modular, API-first platform that companies can assemble and adapt to fit their exact needs, similar to how Shopify supports both prebuilt storefronts and headless commerce. Some customers use it out of the box as a full-stack ERP, while others treat it as a backend and build tools or interfaces on top. Our goal isn't to force a one-size-fits-all model- it's to give teams the flexibility to scale and customize ERP around their own workflows and tools.' The 4-year-old startup plans to allocate the proceeds across three key priorities: U.S. expansion, product development and Japan operations. 'We're accelerating U.S. expansion by building a dedicated go-to-market team and deepening our presence among mid-sized and enterprise customers,' Shibata told TechCrunch. 'Second, we're investing heavily in product development – particularly in extending our ERP modules and AI capabilities. Third, we'll continue scaling our Japan operations, where we already have strong market traction, by expanding our delivery and customer success teams to support growth.'
Associated Press
6 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Thinkstack Brings Contextual, Compliant, Custom AI Agents to the Enterprise
Bespoke AI agents built on your data, your systems, and your terms, without in-house complexity. 'Generic chatbots can answer questions. Our AI agents close loops. AI Automation should feel like your ops team just got sharper overnight, not like another tool to babysit.'— Rajesh Bhattacharjee, CEO & Co-founder, Thinkstack NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, June 26, 2025 / / -- Enterprises are tired of AI platforms that automate the easy parts and ignore the hard ones. While most chatbot tools deliver replies, few are built to automate real operational workflows. Thinkstack, a global leader in AI-native automation, is offering a new path forward; purpose-built AI agents that do the heavy lifting. Thinkstack has announced the launch of its enterprise agentic AI framework, a secure, multilingual, and integration-ready system to deploy custom AI agents; automation that fits like a glove with real business workflows. These agents don't come from a template. Unlike traditional automation or one-size-fits-all copilots, Thinkstack agents are built from the ground up to: - Plug into your internal systems - Understand your business logic - Execute actions with full operational context The framework supports integration with thousands of tools, enabling faster time-to-value with no rip-and-replace requirement. From autonomous ticket triage to multilingual HR assistants, Thinkstack's agents are designed to think, act, and operate across complex systems, including CRMs, ERPs, support desks, internal databases, and even legacy apps. Powered by an agile architecture that's SOC2 and GDPR compliant, the framework allows fast deployment of fully custom agents within weeks. Teams can now integrate structured and unstructured data and orchestrate outcomes in real time. Additionally, Thinkstack is also built for regional adaptability, including full readiness for the MENA market. With right-to-left language support, regional workflow compatibility, and data localization needs, companies in the region can deploy Arabic AI chatbots tailored to local operations and systems. Thinkstack isn't chasing vanity demos. With businesses stuck between building solutions in-house or settling for rigid automation, Thinkstack offers a smarter third option and positions itself as the architecture layer for AI-driven action. Whether you're scaling operations or modernizing legacy workflows, the next stage of enterprise automation is here, and it's custom-built. Learn more or request a hands-on preview at About Thinkstack Thinkstack is a next-generation enterprise AI platform enabling businesses to deploy agentic workflows without writing code. Its secure, modular, and integration-first architecture helps businesses automate mission-critical tasks across departments—without compromising control, compliance, or context. Team Thinkstack Thinkstack +91 93801 69331 email us here Legal Disclaimer: EIN Presswire provides this news content 'as is' without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
Forbes
10-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Will AI Agents Upend The Software Development Life Cycle?
Engaging Agent Mode on active code in GitHub May 2025 will go down in history as the month when agentic software development was truly unleashed upon the world. A significant step up from chat-based code assistants, agentic software tools have been positioned as a revolutionary change in the software development life cycle. Announcements from Microsoft (GitHub Copilot Agent Mode), Google (Jules), OpenAI (Codex) and Anthropic (Claude Agents) are all very promising. However, my conclusion is that we are not witnessing a revolution, but are simply seeing a further evolution of AI automation. And to be honest, I think that is good news. First, let's discuss what has driven this leap forward from coding assistants. A coding assistant is essentially a bot interface to a large language model, and this mechanism has been quite beneficial to many developers. As one proof point for this, at its Build conference in May, Microsoft said that the GitHub Copilot assistant has been used by 15 million developers. (Note: Microsoft is a client of my firm, Moor Insights & Strategy.) But three fundamental AI shifts have led to the creation of these new agentic development tools, which significantly expand the AI benefit to developers. At the Build conference, Agent Mode in GitHub Copilot was the cornerstone of Microsoft's vision of a new SDLC. The company's demonstrations of how much more quickly work can be completed and the seamless integration between VSCode and GitHub were quite impressive — and were always likely to get the lion's share of media coverage. But what's most impressive is the overall breadth of Microsoft's announcements and the fact that Microsoft may be the only company able to execute such a vision. Here are three non-Copilot things from Microsoft that also improve the SDLC. I applaud Microsoft for creating innovations across the whole SDLC. And I know that there are other improvements in security and software updates that I did not include. I do believe that Microsoft is likely the only company that can execute a broad vision for the SDLC since it owns some of the biggest pieces (tooling, repositories, security, collaboration) that a developer needs. That said, I'd like to offer up a couple of areas where Microsoft could look next. I walked away from Build impressed with the technology Microsoft has available and also what is in preview. A great deal of my research over the past 12 months has been around the impact and possibilities of AI agents and agentic workflows. However, I also am not sure we have seen something revolutionary in the SDLC — at least not yet. To me, revolutionary means that it changes the game and how it's played. Evolutionary is introducing new efficiencies to the existing game, which is what I see happening so far in this space. Here are a couple of examples of what I mean. So far, agent-based tools are more like the outsourcing trend — but that's not necessarily bad. AI is still very new and moving very fast. Revolutionizing everything would likely overwhelm many enterprises, so embracing new tools to do existing work may just be the first step in what could ultimately be a revolutionary movement.
Associated Press
02-06-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Grooper and Mutara Launch AI Solution to Streamline College Admissions and Enrollment
New solution delivers faster, more accurate student intake and compliance for higher education institutions OKLAHOMA CITY, June 2, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Grooper, a leader in AI and document processing, and Mutara, Inc., a provider of SaaS solutions for student admissions and enrollment, today announced a strategic partnership to help colleges and universities modernize their admissions and compliance processes. The new joint solution uses AI to automate how student information is collected, verified, and processed - reducing manual work, improving data accuracy, and uncomplicating the student experience. Solving Admissions and Compliance Challenges with AI Higher education institutions are under increasing pressure to manage growing volumes of student documentation, meet complex regulatory requirements, and deliver a seamless experience to applicants. Verifying documents for enrollment, residency, citizenship, and financial aid has traditionally been a slow, manual, and error-prone process. This partnership introduces a smarter, AI-driven approach. This replaces outdated workflows with automation that uses official documents as the source of truth. 'Institutions are looking for new ways to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and enhance the student experience,' said Dan Rotelli, CEO of BIS. 'Our partnership with Mutara directly addresses these challenges by automating manual processes, improving data quality, and ensuring greater compliance.' How the Grooper-Mutara Solution Works Together, they deliver a seamless, end-to-end solution that ensures accurate, verified data enters your systems of record. Benefits for Admissions and Enrollment Teams 'This is more than just automation—it's a smarter way to manage the entire student intake process,' said Larry Grey, CEO of Mutara, Inc. 'By integrating Grooper's document intelligence with our student intake and compliance platform, we're giving institutions the tools they need to focus on students, not paperwork.' About Grooper and BIS BIS is the creator of Grooper, an award-winning AI and document processing platform that empowers today's digital workforce by helping institutions and organizations extract meaningful information from any document, regardless of format or complexity. By combining AI, machine learning, and OCR, Grooper transforms unstructured data into actionable insights. This enables faster decisions, smarter operations, and greater efficiency. Learn more at About Mutara Mutara develops SaaS solutions that help higher education institutions meet their compliance and enrollment goals. Its configurable applications support admissions, residency, financial aid, and continuing education—making it easier to collect accurate information, verify it, and comply with policies. Learn more at View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Grooper
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Scholl Says AI Automation Can Bring Down Labor Cost
Boom Supersonic Founder & CEO Blake Scholl speaks at the Reagan National Economic Forum in California on labor costs and AI automation. He says that the US has a cost disadvantage in "everything that is attached to labor costs" and that we can't "subsidize and tariff" our way through that disadvantage. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
