Appistry, 11 years old, remains one of St. Louis' most promising startups

The cloud-computing firm has reinvented itself several times since it was founded in 2001 by Bob Lozano. The most recent pivot point came a year and a half ago, when Appistry decided to focus on processing the massive amount of data produced by genetic research.

Previously, Appistry had taken a less targeted approach to finding customers. It won some big ones, such as FedEx and State Street Bank, but was having trouble standing out in an increasingly crowded data services industry.

The answer was to specialize, but in what? Appistry’s leaders looked for a growth market, and one in which a St. Louis firm might have a competitive advantage. They found genomics.

“It’s a great fit for St. Louis,” Chief Executive Kevin Haar says. “We have a good computer science team, and there’s a lot of genomics talent in town.”

The transition wasn’t easy. Haar says several employees left Appistry last year because “when we picked this space, it wasn’t what everybody wanted to do.”

The firm rebuilt around people who had experience at Monsanto, Washington University and Pfizer, which was shutting down a drug discovery unit here. The Pfizer hires included Richard Mazzarella, Appistry’s chief computational biologist.

Names such as that provided instant credibility.

“Our customers want to talk about their science and they want to talk to people who understand it,” says Trevor Heritage, Appistry’s vice president of sales and marketing.

Appistry won a big endorsement last month when it was chosen to distribute software developed by the Broad Institute, a genetic research collaboration of Harvard and MIT.

Haar says that arrangement — and the industry’s explosive growth — will help Appistry quadruple its genomics revenue in the next year, and potentially double its staff. The company’s 50 employees work in a loft-like space just south of downtown.

That’s a big growth spurt for a company that has spent more than a decade searching for its niche.

“It may be that persistence and keeping it moving are now going to pay off as the market moves their way,” says Ken Harrington, director of Washington University’s Skandalaris entrepreneurship program.

Since much of Appistry’s funding has come from local angel investors, Harrington says St. Louisans “should pat ourselves on the back a little bit” for having sustained the business this long.

Haar agrees that Appistry is fortunate to have had patient backers.

“It’s been clear that we were early with our technology, but it also was clear to our investors that we were right,” he said. “We’ve just had to keep on clawing until we found the cleanest way to get to market.”

The company has raised $35 million over the years, and Haar says it needs to raise an additional $12 million soon.

That should get Appistry to profitability, Haar says, but he can see needing to raise more money to keep up with growth. Some well-funded California startups are eyeing the genetic-data business, and Appistry doesn’t want to give them an opening.

“You always have to have a sense of urgency about the marketplace,” Haar said. “I think we have the first-mover advantage in the space, and it’s important that nobody catches up.”

That’s spoken like a startup. It’s also spoken like a technology veteran. For Appistry, that’s a combination that should never get old.