{"id":419475,"date":"2026-04-27T05:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T05:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/419475\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T05:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T05:54:10","slug":"galway-woman-seeks-e50m-to-create-irelands-first-luxury-goods-group-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/419475\/","title":{"rendered":"Galway woman seeks \u20ac50m to create Ireland\u2019s \u2018first luxury goods group\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Galway entrepreneur <\/a>Ashley McDonnell has launched a specialist company to invest in Irish fashion and beauty businesses to create a luxury brands group to compete on the global stage. <\/p>\n

Called Vyko Group, the company <\/a>plans to raise \u20ac50 million to fund a number of acquisitions here in 2026. <\/p>\n

McDonnell is seeking to put together a national platform of fashion, beauty and food brands that can be scaled for international markets <\/a>under the Vyko umbrella. <\/p>\n

In an interview with The Irish Times<\/a>, Paris-based McDonnell (32) said Vyko was close to making its first two investments<\/a>, with a third in the pipeline. She said Vyko had initially \u201cscanned\u201d 500 Irish brands, held discussions with 35 of them and is now at the \u201cletter of interest\u201d stage with two. <\/p>\n

One of these would involve an investment of about \u20ac500,000, while the other would be in the \u20ac10 million-plus range. Vyko will seek equity stakes of between 35 and 100 per cent in the businesses, she said.<\/p>\n

Born in New York, McDonnell\u2019s family returned to Ireland when she was five and settled in Galway a year later. <\/p>\n

McDonnell, who founded Irish Fashion Week last year and also hosts a podcast, left Spanish fragrance and cosmetics company Puig in late 2025 to focus on setting up Vyko. <\/p>\n

Puig raised \u20ac2.6 billion in 2024 in what was Europe\u2019s biggest stock market initial public offering<\/a> (IPO). McDonnell spent five years there, latterly as global consumer acceleration director. <\/p>\n

Before Puig, she spent almost two years with Google in Dublin as a luxury account manager, and held roles with Dior, LVMH and Monnier. <\/p>\n

\u201cSince 2019, I\u2019ve wanted to create a structure in Ireland <\/a>similar to LVMH, L\u2019Oreal or Puig with a holding company, shared back office, experts across marketing and distribution and a focus on building Ireland\u2019s first luxury goods group. Finally, the time is right,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was part of the IPO in Puig in 2024; it was the biggest IPO in Europe and they gave \u20ac80 million back to employees. Between that and director roles in corporate for the last while … realistically, I can do the first acquisition myself without raising, but at some point this year we will raise.\u201d <\/p>\n

She said its first three deals will be around fashion because they\u2019ll have the most back office synergies.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the first things that we\u2019ll do is start developing fragrances for these brands, because that is your path, not just probability, but scalability as well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFragrances are more accessible in terms of their price point. They have a longer shelf life. They don\u2019t have the seasonality that a collection does within fashion, where you have to get it out the door within a three-month period.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"Kerry Group CEO on the impact of Middle East conflict, AI and drive to keep bread fresher for longer<\/p>\n

As well as back office synergies, McDonnell says Vyko should also be able to negotiate better deals with retailers. <\/p>\n

\u201cImagine we\u2019re going to a Brown Thomas <\/a>or Selfridges. We\u2019re saying, \u2018right, we have five fantastic brands, three in fashion, and two in beauty. We\u2019d like to negotiate our trade plan for the year. And that\u2019s how all other brands, for the most part, are being represented.\u201d <\/p>\n

As well as fashion and beauty, Vyko also sees \u201chuge potential in luxury food items … [and] we see a lot of interest in Irish jewellery as well\u201d. <\/p>\n

And Aran sweaters? \u201cI\u2019m very interested in Aran sweaters, but apply a luxury strategy and make sure that we actually give them the right value that we\u2019re not making them in China, that they\u2019re made here in Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking out five years, McDonell hopes to have 10 brands under its umbrella, \u201cthat we\u2019ve grown them all at least 100 per cent\u201d. <\/p>\n

She expects the first three investee companies to have combined sales of more than \u20ac25 million, with the goal of expanding that to \u20ac100 million within five years. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s giving them the right technology for demand planning. It\u2019s giving them the right resources and the right connections. There are so many quick wins we can make by bringing brands in the right way to retailers.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Galway entrepreneur Ashley McDonnell has launched a specialist company to invest in Irish fashion and beauty businesses to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1711,61,60,124,43],"class_list":["post-419475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-google","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lvmh","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419475","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=419475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}