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Print Edition StoriesThursday, March 5, 2009
Apperian launches as iPhone developer, plans incubator
By Galen Moore
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A Boston company launched earlier this year by a former Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) employee aims to bring big businesses to Apple’s iPhone App Store with custom applications designed to put the device’s capabilities to work for customers.
Apperian Inc. will develop white label applications for GPS-enabled smartphones, said CEO Chuck Goldman.
“There’s a tremendous shortage of big brands on the App Store right now,” Goldman said. “These smaller companies are beating the big brands at their own services. “You have things like RepairPal instead of Triple-A. You’ve got iJobs instead of Monster. You’ve got a little app called Lose It!, which is a great weight program for the iPhone, instead of Weightwatchers. These little guys are coming out and kicking the brands’ butt in this platform.”
Apperian is backed by strategic and angel investors, said Goldman, a former director of professional services at Apple. He declined to specify who or how much was invested, but said Apperian has brought over several developers and sales executives from the Cupertino computer giant. Goldman founded the company almost immediately after leaving Apple on Jan. 7.
This June, Apperian will start an incubator program, Apperian Human Capital Group. With partners MIT and Stanford University, the program will recruit young iPhone application developers and provide funding, expertise and office space at its South Boston waterfront headquarters for eight to 10 companies a year, Goldman said. In exchange, Apperian will get a stake in the young companies.
Serial entrepreneur and former Key Ventures partner Vinit Nijhawan is among the company’s advisors, Goldman said. The company’s CFO is Barry Goldman, Chuck’s brother, whom the CEO says he dragged “kicking and screaming” from the family business, a Watertown leather importer called PHB International. The two are natives of Newton’s Chestnut Hill neighborhood.
Goldman declined to disclose the company’s customers, but said applications currently under development include applications for health care, auto insurance, real estate and event promotion.
In its health care application, the company is developing middleware to integrate with existing electronic medical record databases so a smart phone can provide patients with medication reminders and automated emergency notification services.
Apperian’s auto insurance application will allow insurance customers to file claims from an accident scene using the phone’s camera.
Promoter, an application for coordinating events, is designed to automate all the hundreds of contacts and pieces of information a planner needs in the 18 hours leading up to an event — say, a rock concert.
“Mötley Crüe shows up with their iPhones,” Goodman said, “and they know exactly where they’re supposed to be and what’s for dinner and when they can plug in for practice time.”
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