Addresse
25 rue Lenepveu
49100 Angers
Manufacturing
From 3D design to launch, every Playa Rent self-service rental station is designed, machined and assembled less than 200 km from our headquarters in Angers. The production of our rental stations has one goal: to make water sports accessible, sustainable and firmly rooted in our regions.
Why Made in France stations?
When you picture a self-service paddleboard and kayak rental station, you first think of the end experience: a QR code, a few minutes later a boat under your arm and the urge to glide across the water. But behind this ease of use lies an entire industrial chain, designed to stay close at hand: that of businesses in western France.
Playa Rent is a young company based in Angers (Maine-et-Loire), founded in 2022. From the very first prototype, we chose to work only with French industrial partners. Because this local network lets us iterate quickly, transport less, and showcase the expertise our regions are proud of.
It is an industrial decision that meets three requirements:
Controlling quality
Our stations live outdoors, sometimes in salty environments. There is no room for approximation. Working with regional partners lets us go and inspect parts, test prototypes and make sure our products are up to standard.
Supporting jobs rooted in our regions
In Vannes, Laval, Angers and Ploemeur: behind every Playa Rent station are women and men practising their trade in French industrial SMEs. Contributing to the country’s reindustrialisation, at our own scale, is part of the project.
Reducing our environmental footprint
Limiting the distances between our partners means limiting transport, and therefore carbon. It also means better control over the traceability of our materials and choosing suppliers who share our environmental standards.
« Our challenge today is to have stations that last over time and blend into the landscape. At Playa Rent, we have this local vision. We want to work with water sports clubs, local authorities and town councils to operate our stations, and with local partners on the industrial side. » — Nicolas Roche, founder of Playa Rent
Our partners
Discover our strategic partners
SIEMENS - design
It all starts in Angers, at our WeForge premises, where every screw, every metal sheet and every mechanical part is modelled in 3D in Siemens Solid Edge. This software — used by the world’s leading manufacturers — is what enables us to guarantee millimetre precision across our assemblies.
Playa Rent has its own design office. Every improvement is tested in-house before being rolled out to our stations.
SERMOP - machining
After the design office has done its work, SERMOP steps in.
Specialising in precision machining, this company
based in Laval for more than thirty-five years puts its
expertise at the service of demanding sectors.
Working with SERMOP means relying on a trusted partner. Their high standards for dimensional quality ensure that every part fits with the next to within a tenth of a millimetre.
TPA Industrie - sheet metal work
Just a few kilometres from our Angers headquarters, TPA — Tôlerie Précision Angevine — cuts, bends and welds the steel and aluminium sheets that give our stations their shape. This proximity is invaluable : it lets us prototype quickly, check parts during production, and move a model from one version to the next without losing time on logistics.
It is also thanks to TPA’s expertise that we were able to design a compact, lightweight station that is easy to install: no concrete slab needed, no power supply needed.
« I met Nicolas […] We went through his plans with him and one day we produced his first prototype. Now I think we’re on version 4 or 5. It’s a young start-up, he has extraordinary ideas and it challenges us too : it’s really interesting. » — Ludovid Hébert, head of TPA Industrie
TAHE Outdoors - boats and equipment
Meanwhile, the paddleboards and kayaks in our stations come out of the Tahe Outdoors workshops in Vannes. It is a historic site : since 1979 (under the name Bic Sport until 2019), some of the world’s best-known paddleboards have been designed and built there, exported to more than 90 countries.
The thermoforming mastered by the Vannes teams is a rare skill in Europe. It gives the boards a stiffness, lightness and UV resistance suited to intensive rental use. For Playa Rent, it guaranteed boats able to withstand several hundred users per season.
VIPAMAT - Hippocampe wheelchair
Playa Rent is committed to making beaches accessible to people with disabilities. In partnership with Vipamat, we have developed the first self-service all-terrain wheelchair rental station designed for beaches. The result : people with reduced mobility, seniors and families can access the beach, coastal paths and the water entirely independently.
A Breton manufacturer based in Ploemeur for more than twenty years. Its flagship wheelchair, the Hippocampe, has become a global benchmark for beach wheelchairs: it floats, crosses sand, and is manual and lightweight. It is the wheelchair used in our Beachwheel stations.
« We chose to partner with a company in Ploemeur that makes wheelchairs. It gives people with reduced mobility access to trails, beaches, the water and forests — all those areas that can normally be hard to reach. » — Nicolas Roche, founder of Playa Rent
BECOME AN OPERATOR
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