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How a Barnstaple start-up grew from a farm shed to a global security innovator
05 November 2025
Tax Partner Pippa Clarke caught up with Rugged Networks Ltd, trading as Giraffe, finalists in the Tech South West Awards 2025 Growth category.
Born on a kitchen table and built in a converted farm shed near Barnstaple, Giraffe has become one of the South West’s most exciting technology growth stories.
“We identified a gap in the rapidly deployable CCTV market and created an ecosystem of products centred on our own PCB design (the Edge Controller) and a proprietary software platform. In simple terms, we provide the fleet management of deployable CCTV security.”
Today, Giraffe’s clients include global security providers protecting temporary sites in construction, highways, infrastructure and vacant property. The UK security market alone is worth more than £10 billion, and as AI reshapes surveillance, Jake sees significant global potential.
Like many entrepreneurial stories, Giraffe’s began with curiosity and reinvention. At just 19, Jake launched Rugged Networks in 2012, combining his passions for technology, electronics and agriculture. With support from his father Rob Withecombe and co-founder Ben Thompson, he developed AgriCamera, a plug-and-play monitoring system for farms.
“We learnt how to design both hardware and software from scratch,” Jake recalls. “When Covid hit and our farming business closed, we realised that everything we’d built (robust, remote, self-managed tech) was ideal for the booming deployable-security market.”
That pivot led to Giraffe, a company that designs and manufactures every component in-house, from printed circuit boards to solar-powered CCTV towers.
“We only buy off the shelf where it makes real business sense,” says Jake. “It’s about control over integration, features and performance.”
Giraffe’s early growth was entirely self-financed, with every penny reinvested. International validation came from clients such as Intertech in the USA, which now operates nearly 1,000 Giraffe units.
By 2025, headcount had expanded from 3 to 21, supported by five overseas consultants, with turnover doubling annually and exports leading the way. The Irish market alone is expected to exceed £1 million this year.
“We’ve achieved around 100% compound growth over three years,” Jake says. “It’s exhilarating, but you feel every heartbeat on cashflow. We know growth will normalise eventually, but we see strong double-digit potential for years ahead.”
Research and development remain at the core of Giraffe’s success. The team is investing heavily in AI-driven analytics and preparing to launch its patent-pending MeerCam™, a compact, mobile CCTV pod that delivers full tower-level capability.
“MeerCam solves long-standing power and deployment challenges,” Jake explains. “It’s the closest experience yet to a virtual security guard; powerful, affordable and mobile. Bringing something so different to market always carries risk, but we’re excited about its potential.”
Tax Partner Pippa Clarke reflects:
“Barnstaple isn’t the obvious home for a technology manufacturer with global reach, yet Giraffe proves that the South West is an incredible launchpad when innovation and determination align.”
Jake agrees:
“We love being rooted here, but our mindset is global. Our goal is to see Giraffe products in the US, Europe, the Middle East and Australia, showing that British technology and manufacturing can compete and win on the world stage.”
Giraffe is a shining example of South West innovation; combining resilience, creativity and world-class engineering to redefine what’s possible in mobile security. Find out more about Giraffe CCTV by clicking here.
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