Paintball venture aims for Europe
SERIAL entrepreneur Jim Mann is aiming to shoot his Darlington paintball retail business - already the largest in Europe - into France and Spain.
Founded in 2001, Darlington-based Just Paintball UK has expanded rapidly and currently sells more than £1.5m of equipment and accessories to UK and Irish customers.
Mr Mann, who also owns a paintballing site in Croft and an online internet accommodation business, said: “France and Spain will give the paintball retail business more buying power. If the UK market for leisure products declines, there are others to go at in Europe and North and South America.”
And the economic slump has not derailed his plans to “maintain or exceed” year-on-year growth of around 40%.
Mr Mann established the business six years ago with the help of a £1,500 funding from Barclays Bank. It supplies branded equipment including paintballs, site overalls and tournament marshal tops to paintball shops and retail customers. In 1999 he founded the Point Blank paintball theme park in Croft and a few months later established Madtrax Tyne Tees, an off-road carting centre that was sold in 2002 “for a healthy return”.
