Boston demolition startup Circa scales reuse model with AI
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Circa says it grew from one truck to nearly $100,000 in cumulative revenue while using AI tools to sort demolition waste and reuse materials.
Circa, a South Boston demolition and hauling startup, says it has grown from one truck to a small crew while using AI tools to help sort debris, build internal workflows and keep reusable building materials out of landfill streams.
Growth built around demolition reuse
In a Manus customer story published Oct. 13, 2026, Circa said the company launched on April 1, 2026, with paperwork completed later that month and its first truck arriving in the second week of May. The profile says cofounder Andrew Costa began alone, then Circa hired its first laborer within two weeks and another the following week. By September, the company said Costa was working with four laborers and three interns.
The company said its early work shifted faster than expected. Circa initially expected junk removal jobs under $1,000 to drive the business, but its Boston real-estate network began producing demolition projects instead. In the Sept. 9, 2026 interview cited by Manus, Shyam Shukla estimated those projects could range from $10,000 to $200,000. Circa reported nearly $100,000 in cumulative revenue and about $250,000 in prospective work as of that interview, figures that the source identifies as self-reported.
How AI is used in the operation
The founders said they used Manus to organize questions tied to a franchise agreement before moving forward with the business, and later to prepare Circa’s application to Harvard Business School’s Foundry program, which the company said it entered in October 2026. The profile says the team also used Manus to build and host its website, improve search visibility, prepare grant applications and create internal workflow tools.
Circa’s cited AI use extends to a visual intake system called Waste-Less Vision. According to the profile, customers submit photos or video of a space, and the system identifies materials and generates a preliminary estimate of disposal costs and labor hours for human review. The story gave the example of a 15-minute basement video that might contain seven mattresses; the system can count them and convert that into a line item for staff to assess. The company said the approach is meant to handle the first pass while experienced workers make the final judgment on site.
Why the model matters
Circa says its mission is to keep useful materials in circulation before they become mixed debris. The company cites a Boston estimate of 640,000 tons of construction and demolition waste each year, equivalent to 26,000 dump trucks of recyclable material, some of which travels to landfills as far away as Alabama, according to the source material. Circa says it separates materials at job sites and routes reusable items to other projects or groups materials for recycling.
The profile also describes a planned next step: reusable canvas bags and a crane mounted to the truck. Shukla estimated a traditional metal roll-off container costs about $5,000, while the bags Circa was sourcing cost roughly $15 each. The company said the setup could help crews separate lumber from drywall as they work, keep trucks fuller and consolidate deliveries from Circa’s hub, though the model still has to prove itself in day-to-day operations.
At the time of the interview, Circa said it was working with Boston Building Resources on a shed made entirely from reclaimed materials, including exterior cladding made from old doors. Shukla said his longer-term vision is a material bank where useful parts of old buildings can wait for another purpose. The profile positions Circa as an experiment in using software and operating systems to make a labor-heavy business more efficient, while the company’s physical crews handle the recovery work itself.
The company’s public descriptions should be read alongside a source discrepancy noted in enrichment data: Circa’s about page dated Aug. 20, 2026 names only Costa and Marc Savatsky as founders, while the Oct. 13 Manus profile refers to all three men as cofounders. The company’s revenue, pipeline and hiring figures are also self-reported and were not independently verified in the supplied material.
