Corran Addison returns to Riot kayaks. Riot, the company he co-founded in 1997, is now owned by Kayak Distribution, which also holds brands Boreal Design and Beluga, along with a distribution partnership with Tahe Marine. Now, Kayak Distribution has acquired Corran’s paddlesports business.
Together, the companies expect to offer a range of more than 200 kayak models and 15 SUPS.
“It’s been 10 years since Corran left Riot,” said Marc Pelland, Kayak Distributions president, “and everywhere I go people come up to me to reminisce about those golden years. The footprint Corran left on people minds during those key years is amazing.”
Corran left Riot in 2004 to start his paddleboarding business Imagine Eco, which he in turn sold in 2012 to the Hong Kong based Pryde group. By the end of 2012 he’d started his latest venture, Corran paddleboards. “We were at a point with Corran SUP where we needed to make a significant business decision,” he said. “Stay small and fiddle around with cool paddleboard projects, or take this to the next level. To do that we needed to partner up with someone who had the means to take our potential to its fulfillment.”
That someone was Kayak Distribution. The deal was brokered by Kayak Distributions director of sales, Mark Hall, who worked with Corran at Riot in early 2000. Kayak Distribution was in need of a SUP offering, and Corran SUP needed the kind of manufacturing and back end infrastructure that Kayak Distribution had. “I am excited as Corran brings years of experience and measurable achievements both on the water and in designing products,” Pelland continued, “which will help us create more exiting products and brands”.
While Corran will be focused on bringing the SUP line to the forefront in 2015, he has said that he will be directly involved with the rejuvenation of the Riot whitewater kayak line once the immediate task is completed.
