Enterprise resource planning (ERP) startup Tailor has secured $22 million in a Series A funding round. Investors participating in the round include ANRI, JIC Venture Growth Investments (JIC VGI), New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Spiral Capital, and Y Combinator.
Tailor, which has dual headquarters in San Francisco and Tokyo, is pioneering a “headless” approach to ERP software. Unlike traditional ERPs, which bundle all functionalities under a single, fixed interface, headless ERP systems separate the user interface or frontend from the backend operations core. According to Tailor’s CEO and co-founder Yo Shibata, this structure enables greater flexibility and allows businesses to customize their own user experiences independently, either using established third-party applications or proprietary interfaces built in-house.
Tailor’s flagship product, Omakase, utilizes APIs which permit AI-driven agents to securely interface with the ERP backend, automating repetitive tasks such as creating summaries of customer histories or initiating workflow processes. Shibata highlighted the increasing role of artificial intelligence in managing operational workloads, noting that currently roughly half of tasks could be handled by AI, with the share projected to rise significantly in the near future.
While the ERP market is crowded—dominated by large incumbent vendors like SAP and Oracle, alongside newer vertically-focused SaaS providers such as Crater and Stitch—Tailor believes its API-driven, modular approach uniquely positions it for success. By providing an adaptable platform designed around collaboration between human users and AI systems, the company aims to serve enterprises that prefer flexible, composable solutions tailored specifically to their operational requirements.
Initially, Tailor targeted retail and e-commerce sectors principally due to their complex supply chains and changing market dynamics. Omakase manages key operational functions including inventory, payments, purchasing, omnichannel retail integration, and fulfillment logistics. However, complexity in B2B scenarios, such as managing forward-looking orders, customized product configurations, or handling multiple inventory streams, has led to increasing interest from industries outside the original target markets.
Founded in 2021 by Shibata, a serial entrepreneur and former McKinsey consultant, and Tailor’s CTO Misato Takahashi, the company has experienced strong growth, expanding its team from just ten employees in 2022 to more than fifty today, across Japan, the U.S., and various international locations.
The newly raised funds will be strategically allocated across three areas: deepening Tailor’s U.S. presence by growing a dedicated go-to-market team, advancing product development—especially expanding functional ERP modules and enhancing AI applications—and strengthening their Japanese operations with expanded delivery and customer success teams.
Shibata emphasized the company’s long-term vision, asserting that rather than limiting its clients to rigid, monolithic solutions, Tailor seeks to offer adaptable and modular tools shaped to fit evolving business needs, much like Shopify does for e-commerce providers. According to Shibata, this open-ended approach allows enterprises greater agility to scale and customize their ERP implementations according to their individual workflows and preferences.
