Thrive
American Circular joins spARK Labs by ARK Invest incubator
The company operates an electronics recycling facility in Clearwater.
American Circular founders Adam Hohlt and Kevin Smith have had an interest in emerging technologies for a while. More so, they saw an opportunity to assist with disposition of electronic assets on a local level.
Earlier this year, they launched the artificial intelligence-supported recycling and refurbishment company. Hohlt, Smith and their team operate a facility in Clearwater, which is designed for data destruction and processing capabilities.
They joined the St. Petersburg-based spARK Labs by ARK Invest incubator this spring. An official announcement was made this month.
“I think that Kevin and I both recognized that this is a kind of unique time in history,” Hohlt said. “The tools that are available now to work with are advancing very rapidly.”
The business partners realized that many people do not know how to properly recycle electronics. More critically, local e-waste is often shipped out of state or overseas.
“That creates a ton of compliance complications and extra costs,” he explained. “It’s not very true to the thinking of recycling.”
This led to the idea of creating a Tampa Bay area facility. American Circular has developed an AI native platform to help in the process.
“The bedrock of it is we use computer vision camera systems throughout our facility,” Hohlt said. “That feeds into our electronics database, which has about 20,000 electronic devices cataloged with schematics, materials, component values and resale values. That database, paired with our vision system, allows us to sort through electronics very quickly and to find value where someone else might just put the items in a shredder.”
The system can even identify if electronics have “potentially hazardous materials.” This lets Hohlt and his team know if they need to handle the asset disposition in a particular way with regards to safety. One of the key challenges of the industry is ensuring that all data is correctly erased before electronics are recycled or destroyed.
“If you’re a bank, hospital, university or a government, there are certain standards that you have to meet when it comes to your data and how your devices are processed at the end of their lives,” he said. “Our facility is built out to that degree. We have security systems throughout it all the way up to a military grade handling of electronics.”
The American Circular team resells electronics whenever possible. Additionally, they are pursuing partnerships with organizations such as Habitat for Humanity. This can put devices “back into the community in a meaningful way.”
Working at spARK Labs by ARK Invest was an opportunity that neither Hohlt or Smith could refuse.
Hohlt explained that he and Smith have been fans of ARK Invest and its founder Cathie Wood for about a decade. The company releases an annual Big Ideas report, which discusses emerging technologies, trends and how different industries are converging.
The two entrepreneurs found inspiration in the 2026 report and used it to help shape American Circular’s business model. Hohlt said that the document “gave us real belief in our thesis.”
Interestingly, Hohlt and Smith were not aware that ARK Invest had relocated to St. Petersburg from New York. They were also not familiar with spARK Labs by ARK Invest. Having a presence at the incubator is “very surreal” for Hohlt. The founders now “work closely” with the ARK Invest and spARK Labs by ARK Invest teams and receive their “guidance and input.”
“It’s nice to be a part of a community that has real excitement and passion,” he said. “You run into a lot of things that you don’t necessarily know about. You may think about these topics, but you don’t know them. It’s nice to be able to know that we can go there and get confirmation in our thinking or get input that changes our thinking.”
