How did we get here, and what about this name? Our Co-Founder & CEO Sam Fleet takes up the story.

Thanks for visiting our new website, it’s great to have you.

On these news pages, you’ll find what we’re up to, insights into our products and the thinking behind them, and maybe the odd random ramble along the way.

Where this post sits, I’ll leave up to you. But I wanted to give a summary of our journey to this point – and how did we get our name, anyway?

Well, it all started in the world of horseracing. Running the service out of our film production company Equine Productions, along with Co-Founders Nathan Horrocks and Dave James, our very first JockeyCam product was publicly launched more than a decade ago. And it was quite an opening weekend, winning the Grand National, one of the most famous races in the world, with our camera onboard the brave and brilliant Many Clouds.

Later that year, we went live for the first time on early supporters Channel 4 Racing, at Ascot, on QIPCO British Champions Day, and our journey really started to take off.

By the end of the 2010s we’d taken the live JockeyCam service – a product specifically built for racing – across the world, not least the USA (which has always been so good to us) but also to into mainland Europe, as well as Australia and Asia..

By the turn of the decade we believed JockeyCam – the product – had enough momentum to be its own company – so JockeyCam Ltd. was formed, and I went from being MD of EP to solely in charge of JockeyCam, day-to-day.

That was January 2020. Everything so positive, the world our oyster.

Within just a few weeks though, things got a whole lot tougher, with Covid-19 forcing months of postponed and cancelled race meetings and a heap of travel restrictions.

But these things are sent to try us, aren’t they, and within a year or two things were moving along very well.

By this time, Nathan, supported by our brilliant Tech Manager Richie Hayes, was spear-heading a growing and successful US operation, and we were still enveloped in the world of racing. JockeyCam Inc. was formed, a US subsidiary of Ltd here in the UK.

Too busy to think much beyond the next weekend, racing was the company’s bread and butter. And we learnt so much.

We lived and breathed how every ounce or gram mattered, and the critical nature of design, what works, what doesn’t, what’s comfortable, what isn’t.

Also, just being acutely aware when being around professional athletes how we must do all we can to not get in the way – they have a job to do. Win races, in the case of jockeys, of course.

And we won – and do win – plenty, and we will always love being on board as we cross the line first. But plenty of times the story of the race can be captured by those watching the winner go by. All those moments remain a privilege to be involved in, and giving fans a taste of that action is something we will always be proud of.

Then, in 2023 our story started to evolve.

First, we put our cameras on Speedway helmets – a type of motorbike racing around a dirt-track oval. That was a new thrill. And towards the end of that year we had an email from the team at Six Nations Rugby – keen for a live referee camera which could be light and comfortable enough to wear, and still satisfy top level broadcasters. We had produced similar for jockeys, some of the most weight and safety conscious athletes in sport, so could we help?

We jumped at the chance and by the February of 2024 had designed a new live RefCam and had successfully taken our tech into a new sport and completely different design for the first time, with pictures from our cameras being beamed to tens of millions of new fans.

Like the early days of racing, it wasn’t without its challenges. How do we make sure our system doesn’t over-heat under a shirt, how do we stop the referee’s collar covering the lens? How do we balance robustness with being light-weight and wearable?

But some of the action we captured was incredible and we knew we were onto something.

Having caught the bug of other sports, we started exploring what else could we do – and had a similar note from the world of golf – which led us to our first CapCam. Again, we were pleased with the product – but we knew it could be better.

All the while, we were continuing to push the boundaries of what was possible. How great could our camera be? How do we keep it light? How do we ensure the battery lasts? What would broadcasters consider perfection, from a camera so small?

We’d learnt so much from the world of racing, and now we were introduced to more challenges, but challenges we relished.

As we further built the team, we have worked incredibly hard to develop in multiple areas, both in camera improvements and also developing a deep understanding in incredibly accurate IMU & GPS positional tracking, live, through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with the University of Exeter.

This journey has been exhilarating.

Thanks to talented colleagues and some extraordinary partners, together with fantastic, forward-thinking clients, we have, with relish, developed our systems to a suite today we are supremely proud of.

The specs for these products are on these pages of the website of course, but with horizon lock stabilisation, incredible RF performance and a number of other features, all in incredibly light and wearable systems, the interest across platforms has been brilliant.

Now delivering live pictures across a large array of sports, from American football to basketball, UFC to Rugby Union, Football to Kabaddi – and many more – for some of the biggest broadcasters in world sport, things have grown so much, yet we feel we have only scratched the surface.

POV content and how it’s delivered, is undoubtedly a growth market. The better the images, the easier to wear, the greater this need will be. All helped too by the potential to help sports evolve, to assist officiating and giving viewers’ incredible access. It’s exciting and we love playing our part in this wave that is being ridden.

But what about our name?

Could it be called the JockeyCam BodyCam, or the JockeyCam CapCam. We felt no, and no, too much of a mouthful, not clear enough. However much we respect our roots, we needed a new name.

Cue months of suggestions, debate, ponderings.

In the end, it was clear we just had to settle on something.

We went back to basics, what is it we deliver? Point-of-View cameras. POV. And what do we capture? The energy, the feeling around someone. The AURA.

So, POVORA was named.

Yes, Aura is mis-spelt, but we think it looks better on screen 🙂 And with six letters it has a certain balance we think works.

Not everyone will like it, we hope most do, of course, but now we have a name which can help differentiate us. It’s a POVORA RefCam. A POVORA CapCam, and so on.

We may have been around, or at least our first JockeyCam has, since 2015.

But now it feels like we’re really getting started. Not only are we incredibly proud of our product range right now, we also have some incredibly exciting other projects we’re working on too, which we can’t wait to share.

Thanks for reading this first post, it’s very much appreciated.

And if you think we we can help deliver pictures for your audience- please do reach out to us, we’d love to hear from you.