MISSION Boat Gear is a Minnesota-based company that was founded by industrial designer and business developer Kris Clover in September 2014. After spending countless hours on the water with his family and friends, he began to realize that many of the accessories that were available for use with recreational boats were either outdated designs or no longer met the needs of modern boaters. Kris set out to investigate the market and discovered many opportunities to innovate. He started by focusing on the wake shaping market.

Kris began by innovating in one of the fastest growing activities in recreational boating today, wakesurfing. He found that there was a significant gap in the market. New inboard tow boats, which have an average sales price of $77,032, come with specialized systems designed to improve the shape of the boats wake for surfing but there were no companies providing simple solutions for older generation tow boats. After investigating the intellectual property landscape, he found that there was a large space to innovate in this area. Kris set out to design, develop and launch two aftermarket diverters that fit several Malibu boat models. These two solutions, named Surfside, attached to the swim platform without boat modification or additional permanently mounted hardware. Surfside launched with great success selling well in the first few hours of launch on Instagram alone.

Although Surfside panels were selling well, the Surfside panels mounted to the swim platform and mated to the transom requiring each boat model to have a unique solution. This and the labor-intensive manufacturing process limited the ability to scale Surfside to accommodate a wide range of the overall towboat market.
 
Realizing there was significant opportunity in creating a universal wake shaping device that worked on any boat model, Kris partnered with Mark Bohlig, a friend and mechanical engineer, to create a completely new solution. In August 2015, they began the development process and built over 100 prototypes and invested more than a 1,000 hours to come up with a solution that was vastly different than anything the market had seen before.

Unlike existing OEM and aftermarket wake solutions, this new product, called DELTA, easily attached to the side of the boat using hi-powered suction cups. By using suction and changing the mounting location to the side of the boat, the challenges they once faced in attaching to the swim platform were eliminated. DELTA launched in May of 2016 and sold out almost immediately.

Today MISSION has spread into several new boating accessories categories from wakesurfing products to docking fenders, and has over 150 retail partners worldwide.

MISSION is located in the land of 10,000 lakes just off the shores of Lake Minnetonka. We're a team of boating enthusiasts who absolutely love being on the water. We strive to design and develop innovative boating and lake life accessories that help you get the most out of your day.