Contour used to be known as VholdR, a Seattle based start-up whose vision was formed in 2003. Back then, founders Marc Barros and Jason Green were undergrads at the University of Washington. They also happened to be avid skiers who wanted to share their experiences with friends and family—so they designed a helmet camera to capture their mountain adventures. They came up with a strategy to market this hands-free camera and entered it in a business plan competition in school. The partners took 3rd place and used the prize money to develop their product.

The company name was eventually changed into Contour and in 2009 they introduced the world’s first hands-free High Definition camera that could shoot 8 hours of HD video on one memory card. In 2010, they were named the Washington Technology Industry Association’s Breakthrough Startup of the Year. Contour is now one of the market leaders in manufacturing and selling this new breed of action, POV cameras.

The company was recently awarded as an International CES Innovations 2011 Design and Engineering Awards Honoree for their ContourGPS video camera. This is their second award from CES. This 2011, Red Dot Design also honored the ContourGPS with a design innovation award.