The original goal of Clearpath was to streamline field robotics research for universities and private corporations, but the company has since expanded and is now also manufacturing and selling the OTTO line of self-driving vehicles for industrial environments.

[5] Due to concerns raised by the academic community regarding the future of robotics research, Clearpath issued a statement to reinforce that it would continue to do what it could to support ROS.

[11] By March 2015, Clearpath announced a $14 million Series A investment led by RRE Ventures meant to fund the development of products capable of automating dangerous jobs in industrial and manufacturing facilities.

[13][14] At the same time, it continued to develop and sell systems meant to fulfill its original mandate of helping researchers work more efficiently.

[22] The complete OTTO Motors brand was announced in 2016,[23] and is Clearpath's first known entry into the large scale deployment of autonomous vehicles.