Innovate
Iron Meadow joins spARK Labs by ARK Invest incubator
The organization acquires niche online businesses and utilizes artificial intelligence to enhance operations.
Iron Meadow founder and CEO Steve McGarry has found a home for his company at St. Petersburg-based incubator spARK Labs by ARK Invest. For the entrepreneur, the decision was easy.
The organization acquires niche online businesses and utilizes artificial intelligence to enhance operations and support growth. McGarry and his team moved into the ARK Innovation Center last month.
McGarry has been in the mergers and acquisitions space for about 10 years. Prior to creating Iron Meadow, he scaled multiple businesses.
The entrepreneur has served as managing partner of real estate investment firm McGarry Ventures and founded gaming analytics company SandStorm, which was acquired by Kissmetrics Holding in 2025.
Through McGarry’s various experiences, he has learned the “ins and outs of deal making,” and more importantly, “what it takes after the close of a transaction” for a business to succeed.
One of the major trends that McGarry noticed was artificial intelligence. His goal was to try to figure out how the technology could help improve and optimize companies.
“I saw the opportunity to apply various different AI tools to mergers and acquisitions,” McGarry explained. “I started doing it just on smaller deals.”
Iron Meadow completed the acquisition process for its first company, a logistics provider, in May.
AI has allowed McGarry and his team to evaluate a business’s bookkeeping and technology stacks. It can also help determine what the company needs to continue to thrive.
“One of the easiest things for people to implement is going through and figuring out what are the newest pieces of technology that you can just build yourself,” McGarry said.
“When you have a subscription business where you’re already paying $5,000 a month in subscriptions for all of the different softwares that you need to run it, with the advent of AI, people are basically rebuilding these tech stacks from the ground up for a fraction of that cost.”
McGarry and his team can reconstruct tech stacks within 30 to 60 days. Subscription costs can be reduced by 60 to 70%.
Before moving to St. Petersburg, McGarry was a resident of San Francisco. He has followed ARK Invest founder and CEO Cathie Wood for multiple years.
The St. Petersburg-based investment management firm focuses on five core themes: artificial intelligence, robotics, blockchain, energy storage and multiomics biology.
McGarry appreciated ARK Invest’s “frontier approach” to AI. After learning about the spARK Labs by ARK Invest incubator, he realized that the program could be an invaluable opportunity for Iron Meadow.
“The level of technology at spARK Labs very much reminds of San Francisco and these big accelerator programs out there,” McGarry added. “It is very community driven.”
To exemplify, he discussed the incubator’s Lunch and Learn events. These gatherings give founders the opportunity to connect and network.
McGarry explained that the spARK Labs by ARK Invest team has created a “common ground” for members. AI is one of the key topics. Business leaders frequently share ideas with each other.
“Within our first week or so of being there, I learned about three different new AI tools that I hadn’t heard of before,” he said. “We’ve already integrated them into our stack that we use for optimizing businesses. So, there’s just a lot to be said about being around people that are in your space, and they’re also willing to learn.”
Since Iron Meadow announced its first acquisition, McGarry added, more than 15 companies have expressed interest in a potential partnership. The entrepreneur hopes to eventually purchase five businesses.
“AI is fundamentally reshaping how businesses are built, scaled and ultimately create value, and Iron Meadow represents another example of that transformation,” said spARK Labs by ARK Invest CEO and president Becca Brown in a statement prepared for the Catalyst. “Their approach to AI-driven mergers and acquisitions adds a unique dimension to our ecosystem and reinforces our commitment to supporting founders who are defining what’s next.”
