“Can the vertical ERP for craft beverage become the payments and financial operations layer for the entire craft supply chain?”
Founded 2014 as a category-defining vertical ERP for craft breweries, cideries, and wineries — a market previously served only by expensive generic ERPs. Grew to 17k+ users on six continents via a horizontal product footprint (inventory, production, sales, accounting, TTB reporting). Now consolidated under the Next Glass parent (with Untappd, Ollie, PaySmart) — the strategic direction is clearly toward embedded finance, with Ekos Payments launching in 2026 and sibling brand PaySmart (withpaysmart.com) providing the payments rail. Ekos is transitioning from pure operational SaaS into an embedded-payments platform for the craft beverage supply chain.
Ekos processes payments through Ekos Payments (self-operated) and PaySmart (Next Glass affiliate).
Ekos integrates with QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Xero, Sage Intacct, Shopify, Square, Commerce7, Arryved and 8 others.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 2 layers in Ekos's stack: Payments / PSP (Ekos Payments (self-operated) and PaySmart (Next Glass affiliate)); Accounting (QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Xero, Sage Intacct and 12 others).
Ekos was founded by Josh McKinney and Greg Forehand and is founded in 2014, headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States.
Ekos has raised $29.5M in total (latest round: Series B, 2021).
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Ekos and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.