{"id":128046,"date":"2025-11-08T03:59:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T03:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/128046\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T03:59:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T03:59:13","slug":"irish-online-wine-start-up-winespark-worth-e8m-in-latest-funding-round-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/128046\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish online wine start-up WineSpark worth \u20ac8m in latest funding round \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dublin-based online wine club WineSpark <\/a>has been valued at \u20ac8 million in its latest fundraising round following \u20ac1.5 million investment by global wine makers.<\/p>\n

The start-up sought investment from its customers and notable wine producers globally, including those from New Zealand, Portugal and France. In total, 77 investors participated with an average investment of \u20ac19,500<\/p>\n

WineSpark founder Eamon FitzGerald<\/a> said he went into the funding round feeling it would be a \u201ctall order\u201d to fill the \u20ac1.5 million round for about 18.5 per cent of the company, but said the interest from suppliers and customers in buying into the company has been \u201creally encouraging\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said the decision not to opt for institutional investors was based on prior experience in the sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to make sure that whoever I brought on board as investors would be aligned with the business in the medium to long term,\u201d he said, seeking to avoid pressure to \u201ccompromise on [WineSpark\u2019s] qualities and values\u201d. <\/p>\n

The company similarly acquired its initial seed funding when its founder secured \u20ac300,000 from wine makers to establish the business, which now generates annual recurring revenues of \u20ac1 million.<\/p>\n

\"\"Will Imagine\u2019s big gamble double its customer base?<\/p>\n

The company expects to increase its employee headcount from its current five people to about 15 over the next three years. It aims to achieve \u20ac50 million in turnover by 2030, driven by an imminent expansion into the UK market later this month.<\/p>\n

Mr FitzGerald noted that the UK market is about 12 times larger than Ireland. Having previously acted as managing director of UK-based online wine retailer Naked Wines until 2019, he \u201cknows the market well\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI scaled that business to \u00a3100 million (\u20ac114 million) and 250,000 subscribers, so I know what success looks like. We are aiming for half that sales growth in five years. That gives me the confidence that I\u2019ve done it before and could do it again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWine drinkers who care about quality are just as underserved [in the UK] as they are in Ireland, especially in today\u2019s climate of rising living costs,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Mr FitzGerald also noted WineSpark\u2019s \u201cextremely efficient business model,\u201d which has a small fixed cost base, allowing them to sell wine at a lower margin while still retaining a profit.<\/p>\n

In addition to entering the UK market, the company has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) recommendation service to personalise customers\u2019 wine choices based on their taste preferences and order history.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur model, together with an enhanced AI experience, will enable people to drink better wine for the same spend, or much better wine for less.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born out of a desire to reduce waste and drive cost efficiency, the company has also been running a pilot scheme that incentivises customers to return wine cases and packaging in exchange for store credit. Since launching the scheme last year, they have seen nearly two-thirds of their boxes returned, enabling them to reuse 35 tonnes of cardboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dublin-based online wine club WineSpark has been valued at \u20ac8 million in its latest fundraising round following \u20ac1.5…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[22534,72,61,60,17328,74414],"class_list":{"0":"post-128046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-accenture","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-wine","13":"tag-wine-bars"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}