It was no question of whether or not Alex and Andy Lonsberry would establish a business, it was simply a matter of what it would be.
The two Cleveland natives were brought up with an entrepreneurial spirit—their family owned a custom motorcycle business, which introduced them to the world of manufacturing. But it wasn’t until they were both working toward their doctorates at Case Western Reserve University that they started making big moves.
The brothers were looking for a market pain point at least $10 billion in size. So, they started an advanced engineering consulting firm and began exploring northeast Ohio manufacturers to learn about struggles they were facing. It took two years to find their business idea, and as calculated as the brothers are, it came to them in surprise.
They had visited Corsa Performance, already with ideas on the table, but the president of the exhaust systems company had a market pain-point they were ready to discuss: welding. At the time, the company had only ten human welders and had trouble retaining them, Andy says, and the technology used to weld at the time still couldn’t keep up with what a human could do.
Stay up to date with Columbus’ dynamic business scene: Subscribe to CEO’s weekly newsletter, Insider
The president ended up offered the Lonsberry brothers $315,000 to create the welding technology the company needed, so they did. And the idea certainly showed potential—according to the American Welding Society, the U.S. could face a shortage of 400,000 human welders by 2023.
Today, the autonomous welding technology the brothers were set out to create is helping a variety of businesses under the name Path Robotics, reincorporated in 2018 from the former engineering consulting firm. And while it was founded in Cleveland, Andy, the CEO, knew the business wouldn’t reach its full potential unless it was in a city like Columbus.
“Columbus is an incredibly exciting city. It’s young, it’s vibrant. We’ve just been way more successful with bringing people from both coasts in Columbus but then also the talent here—a lot of engineers being here was huge for us,” Andy says. “… staying in Ohio was important for us because there’s about $6 billion dollars worth of welding done in Ohio alone.”
Today Path Robotics has headquarters in the …….