Large and mid-sized enterprises and businesses are adopting – and offering – software-as-a-service platforms as they seek to increase revenue and drive growth for greater efficiency. Now young startup Emitr plans to bring the benefits of this model to small and local businesses in the US Emitr. He said he helps small businesses with things like appointment reminders and reviewing leads. On Tuesday, the startup led by two Indian founders announced that it has raised $4 million in a pre-series one round to expand its automation solutions in the US market.
Bengaluru-headquartered Chirata Ventures led the funding for Emitr, which saw participation from Venture Highway, Forty Two VC and Axilor Ventures.
In an interview with TechCrunch, Emitr founder Anmol Oberoi said, “We are basically like commercial text messaging software and automation software.
Emitr, founded in December 2020 by Oberoi and his partners Pulkit Gambhir, says more than 150 local businesses in the US use its platform. These businesses range from single location healthcare practices to multi-location home service companies. The startup has some small business customers in Australia and Canada.
Anmol Oberoi (left) and Pulkit Gambhir (right)
The Delaware-based startup caters to international markets and has no customers in India, but employs a team of 25 people — most from tier-two and tier-three cities — in the South Asian market.
Emitr operates over a thousand vertical CRM platforms that domestic companies often use to solve customer management tasks. Oberoi Emitr has so far built seven to eight different Short Message Service (SMS) automation models.
Local health care centers, dentists and home care providers can use these automated models to send appointment reminders and services to their customers for comments and reviews. Oberoi told TechCrunch that while Emitr is heavily targeting healthcare and home services, it has also started acquiring customers from real estate, salons, restaurants and other diverse verticals.
Ironically, Emitter is using traditional text messages on WhatsApp for its work. Oberoi says people in many markets, including the US, Australia and Canada, still prefer to use SMS over any third-party offering, but the startup says it can reach out to quickly adopt WhatsApp or any other instant messaging service to its platform.
Emitr brings automation to business communication
“Our platform can be used by any local business in the world,” he said. “We automate the tasks of the receptionist sitting in the dental office and the front desk executive sitting in the restaurant.”
Because Emitter sends and receives messages directly from businesses to customers, it often processes sensitive information. Oberoi has system-wide encryption to ensure data safety and security of platform processes.
“Our incoming and outgoing text messages are fully encrypted,” he said. The Company complies with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).
“We have a single-tenant architecture, so if a deal happens, even in this scenario, the deal will only happen for one customer — not hundreds of customers,” Oberoi said.
Emitr is not just about selling automation platforms to business contacts. Companies including Weave and Podium operate in the same space and are targeting small businesses.
Oberoi says Emory has a cost advantage over its competition and can identify many problems in the market that its key competitors cannot solve. “Primarily where we take customers from Weave and Podium is product and support,” he said.
With the new funding, Emitr plans to expand its platform into automation and solutions for 15 to 20 small businesses. It also aims to double its go-to-market activity.
“Pulkit and Anmol bring deep domain knowledge and we are excited to partner with them in building and delivering solutions with real-world applicability and practical use cases,” said Venkatesh Pedi, Managing Director and Partner, Chiratha Ventures. .
Prior to the new round, Emitter raised about $495,000 from Venture Highway, Acceler Ventures and some angel investors.
“Small and local businesses, like your local dentist or salon, have a unique set of challenges in the US and around the world, including lack of customer-facing workflows or very low digitization,” said Sameer Sood, Founding Partner, Venture Highway. . “The ability to maintain high levels of service with little to no human touch, behind expensive labor, is a key problem waiting to be solved. The founders have a unique understanding of the space and a clear vision of how to create holistic customer-facing journeys and enhance the customer experience for these businesses – Emitr It’s building a ‘to-go’ solution,” Sood said.
