Advanced Mobility Sector Taking Flight in Northwest Arkansas

Gravity Industries founder Richard Browning demonstrates the technology used in one of his company’s Flight Suits. (Courtesy UP.Partners)

Cyrus Sigari is betting on Bentonville. The test pilot-turned-angel investor sees Arkansas’ potential to lead the advanced mobility sector. That’s why the UP.Summit, an annual, invitation-only investor gathering hosted by Sigari’s UP.Partners investment group is moving to Bentonville permanently.

“There’s something magical about the largest company in the world being born and still residing in this quaint, beautiful town of Bentonville,” Sigari says, referring to Walmart. “It’s the perfect example of the American dream and the resulting economic success and increasing quality-of-life. It’s a very fertile ground to be inspired.”

The UP.Summit has been held almost annually since 2017 (COVID interrupted the 2020 and 2021 gatherings) in Wyoming, Texas and Bentonville. Some of the most advanced aircrafts in the world have made their debut there, and guests have ranged from now-NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, who led SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn manned space mission in 2024, to former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former President George W. Bush.

“I like to say it has the exclusivity of an Allen & Co. gathering, the education of TED, the fun, playful, kinetic nature of the OshKosh tech show and the funkiness of Burning Man, all wrapped around 350 entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers and leaders from the defense community,” Sigari says.

Last year’s Summit in Bentonville was the most successful yet, leading to the decision to hold the event there again this fall and for the foreseeable future.

A community day brought out 12,000 NWA residents interested in the futuristic aircraft on exhibit. Attendees set a Guinness World Record for most model rockets launched simultaneously — more than 6,000.

“Even more exciting than gathering all these incredible entrepreneurs is seeing how the technology resonates with children and their families. So much of the event is having your childhood dreams come true,” Sigari says.

An Industry Arkansas-made

Arkansas has long been a leader in the transportation industry, from the days of Sam Walton flying a two-seat plane over the state to scout new Walmart locations to the powerhouse logistics company Johnnie and Johnelle Hunt built in J.B. Hunt.

These days, some new players — and some familiar faces — are entering the scene. Game Aerospace, founded by Steuart Walton and German pilot and designer Philipp Steinbach, is in the process of developing their second purpose-built plane, the GB2 Firefighting Aircraft. It follows the release of the company’s GB1 GameBird, a super lightweight, aerobatic aircraft.

In the self-driving vehicle space, both Walmart and Tyson Foods have partnered with Gatik AI Inc. to deploy autonomous truck deliveries. Gatik is headquartered in California but maintains an office in Northwest Arkansas to support its local customers.

“Walmart has had a really big impact on the ecosystem by being a customer,” Sigari says. “Many of these leading technologies are being tested and launched in Northwest Arkansas; I think we’ll continue to see that.

“A lot of the activity that’s happening around drones and manufacturing, testing autonomous technologies on the ground — that’s part and parcel to what Walmart’s doing.”

In 2019, Ross Perot Jr. invited UP.Partners to host the summit at his ranch in Texas. That year, invited investors contributed $900 million to startups and growth-stage companies whose tech was featured at the event.

In 2022, then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson launched the Arkansas Future Mobility Council, which Sigari chaired as the group developed a comprehensive plan to make the state a leader in advanced mobility. The group projected that advanced mobility could be a $9.9 billion industry in Arkansas by 2030 with the right investments and infrastructure.

“This past year, it’s gone beyond advanced air mobility to: ‘How do we move atoms more efficiently?’ What’s obvious is the key to doing that is an abundance of energy,” Sigari says. “We had Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ compact nuclear reactors that can fit in the back of a semitruck, and new tech around the future of artificial intelligences that are more energy efficient that will solve problems in the physical world.”

Sigari didn’t yet have the investment numbers from the 2024 UP.Summit, but he said the annual event, next scheduled for fall, is a culmination of the work UP.Partners does every day in identifying leaders in advanced mobility.

“We’re entering an age of techno-optimism in a time when humans really need it,” Sigari says. “That’s really cool and very much at the core of the American spirit, the American dream, and it’s something worth celebrating and elevating.”