Now a young startup, Emitrr, is aiming to bring the benefits of this model to small and local businesses in the U.S. On Tuesday, the startup, led by two Indian co-founders, announced that it raised $4 million in a Pre-Series A round to widen its automation solution in the U.S. market. The startup also has some small business clients in Australia and Canada. Anmol Oberoi (left) and Pulkit Gambhir (right)The Delaware-based startup is catering to the global markets and has no customers in India, but it employs a team of 25 people — most of whom work remotely from tier-two and tier-three cities — in the South Asian market. Oberoi said that people in many markets including the U.S., Australia and Canada still prefer to use SMSs over any third-party offerings, but added that it’s within reach for the startup to quickly adopt WhatsApp or any other instant messaging service onto the platform. Oberoi said that there is system-wide encryption to ensure the security and safety of data the platform processes. The company also complies with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) to protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed without the patient’s consent or knowledge. Emitrr claims to help small businesses by automating tasks such as appointment reminders and review generations. Emitrr, founded by Oberoi and his partner Pulkit Gambhir in December 2020, claims that that over 150 local businesses in the U.S. use its platform. Oberoi told TechCrunch that while Emitrr is targeting healthcare and home services heavily, it has started getting customers from real estate, salons, restaurants and other different verticals. It’s remarkable that Emitrr is using traditional text messages over WhatsApp for its tasks. Oberoi claimed that Emitrr has a cost advantage over the competition and can identify many problems that its key competitors are not solving in the market. Emitrr is not alone in selling automation platforms for business communication.