Austin Tech Week Kicks Off Monday; Archer Maps Air Taxi Routes to COTA, UT Launches AI Sports Lab

Five days of startup programming start Monday at STATION Austin, as Archer Aviation proposes electric air taxi routes to Circuit of the Americas, UT Athletics opens an AI lab, and XBiotech names a co-CEO.

Austin Tech Week opens Monday with five days of founder, investor, and community events, after Archer Aviation unveiled plans Friday for an electric air-taxi network in Austin that would link Austin-Bergstrom International Airport with Circuit of the Americas, timed to the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix. Also Friday, University of Texas Athletics and the McCombs School of Business launched an AI and sports analytics lab backed by Dell Technologies and Google Cloud, Austin biotech XBiotech Inc. named a second chief executive, and Tesla reportedly expanded its Austin robotaxi service area to include the racetrack.

Austin Tech Week kicks off Monday with five days of startup events

Austin Tech Week runs Monday, Oct. 26, through Friday, Oct. 30, with programming based at STATION Austin, 701 Brazos St., and events spread across the city. The annual gathering began in 2011 as Austin Startup Week and, according to the Austin Technology Council, took its current name in 2024. Registration and the schedule are on the Austin Tech Week website.

STATION Austin, the nonprofit Capital Factory launched in March to carry on its community programming, lists Austin Tech Week among its flagship events, according to its launch announcement. The event site lists 119 speakers for 2026, among them investors from S3 Ventures, LiveOak Ventures, Mercury Fund, Matchstick Ventures, 8VC and Antler; Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe; WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner; Austin Technology Council CEO Thom Singer; and Gordon Daugherty, interim CEO of Capital Factory and STATION.

Highlights posted so far include:

• Women in Tech Day, Monday: Workshops on leadership and AI from 9:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. on the eighth floor of STATION Austin, organized with Austin Women in Technology, followed by a happy hour at TWINS Rooftop. (Details)
• Startup Crawl: Dozens of startups set up tables to demo products and meet customers, investors and job seekers. Organizers had not posted the date and time as of Sunday. (Details)
• AI Startup Rodeo, Friday: A daylong program on AI agents, developer tools and machine-to-machine payments at Q Branch, 200 E. Sixth St. Tickets are $25. (Details)

Monday morning also brings a Founder & Investor Breakfast from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at Austin Garden & Studio, 1209 E. Sixth St. Nicole Bentz, vice president at S3 Ventures, and Kyle Haramliysky, co-founder and managing partner of xEquity Group, will discuss what makes a startup worth backing, how investors evaluate opportunities, and how founders can build stronger investor relationships. Breakfast and networking are included. The event is part of the Rise & Raise breakfast series with Raisi, Seed2Table and The Network Firm. (Details and RSVP)

Last year’s edition included more than 50 gatherings, from early-morning networking walks to pitch competitions, Silicon Hills News reported. Many events require advance registration, so attendees should check individual listings.

Archer Aviation proposes Austin air taxi network, including COTA helipad

California-based Archer Aviation Inc. said Oct. 23 it plans electric air taxi networks in Austin, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth. The Austin network would connect three sites: Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Austin Executive Airport and the F1 Circuit Helipad at Circuit of the Americas. The Houston plan includes five sites, among them both commercial airports and Galveston, while the Dallas-Fort Worth plan lists seven, according to the company’s announcement.

The routes would use Archer’s all-electric Midnight aircraft, which the company says can turn a 60- to 90-minute drive into a 10- to 20-minute flight. Midnight is on display at the Grand Prix at COTA through Sunday. “Texas is setting the bar for America’s leadership in the next generation of aviation,” said Adam Goldstein, Archer’s founder and CEO.

Archer has not set a start date for passenger service in Austin. The company said its Texas operations would fall under the federal eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, and that America’s Consortium for Electric Skyways, a venture of Archer, BETA Technologies and Macquarie Capital, is working with the Texas Department of Transportation on aircraft charging at airports and other sites. AVweb noted the routes remain proposals pending regulatory approval.

For Austin, the plan puts the region on an early map for electric air mobility and points at a familiar pain point: getting to and from a racetrack that draws hundreds of thousands of fans on Grand Prix weekend.

UT Athletics, McCombs launch Bevo Lab with Dell, Google Cloud

University of Texas Athletics and the Business of Sports Institute at the McCombs School of Business on Oct. 23 launched Bevo Lab, a sports intelligence platform that will apply AI and data analytics to athlete performance, according to a UT news release.

Round Rock-based Dell Technologies is a founding sponsor and the lab’s official technology infrastructure provider. Google Cloud is the official cloud and enterprise AI provider, and SHI International is a founding sponsor and systems integrator. Longhorn Sports Properties, Learfield’s local unit, helped assemble the partnerships. The university did not disclose the lab’s budget.

Planned components include a unified data platform, predictive models, and custom apps for coaches and staff. Kirk Goldsberry, executive director of the Business of Sports Institute, will direct modeling and data work, and the lab will involve up to 40 student researchers a year. It will be housed in Innovation Tower near campus. The project gives UT students hands-on AI experience and showcases two of the region’s biggest tech employers in a high-profile campus setting.

XBiotech names Jan-Paul Simard co-CEO

Austin-based XBiotech, which develops therapeutic antibodies from what it calls its “True Human” discovery platform, said its board elected Jan-Paul Simard co-chief executive alongside Dr. Sushma Shivaswamy, effective Oct. 23, according to a company release.

Shivaswamy, a 17-year company veteran and chief scientific officer since 2017, became interim CEO in December 2025 after founder John Simard retired. Jan-Paul Simard joined in 2012 as a research and development assistant and moved to clinical development in 2020, working on trial design for studies in pancreatic cancer, lung cancer, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. The release did not describe any relationship between him and the founder.

XBiotech, which works in oncology, inflammatory and infectious diseases, trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker XBIT.

Tesla reportedly extends Austin robotaxi service to COTA for race weekend

Tesla’s Austin robotaxi service area now includes the area around Circuit of the Americas, and riders can request rides until 1 a.m., according to an updated version of the Robotaxi app reported Oct. 23 by Drive Tesla Canada and Tesla Oracle. Tesla did not issue a formal announcement.

The later cutoff is one hour past the midnight limit Tesla adopted Oct. 17. Some users reported the app still blocked bookings at the track early on, and it is unclear whether the expanded area and hours will last beyond the Grand Prix. Austin remains the only city where Tesla’s purpose-built Cybercab carries riders.

Also in Silicon Hills

• First Day: Private equity firm Paine Schwartz Partners made a strategic investment in the Austin-based family vitamin and supplement brand, founded in 2019 by CEO Alice Li. Terms were not disclosed. (PR Newswire)
• ASPR AI: The Austin-based sales automation startup launched Private Sales Agent Studio, which lets companies run its AI sales agents inside their own cloud, plus meeting notetaker agents that work in more than 50 languages. (PR Newswire)

Only in Austin

With air taxis on Austin’s horizon, consider how the city’s aviation story began: without a runway. The first airplane to land in Austin, the Vin Fiz, touched down in 1911 near what is now 45th and Duval streets, according to the Austin History Center. The city opened Robert Mueller Municipal Airport in 1930, named for a longtime City Council member. Mueller closed on May 22, 1999. Austin-Bergstrom International opened the next day on the former Bergstrom Air Force Base, named for Capt. John August Earl Bergstrom, Austin’s first World War II loss.

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