Craft brewery Wicklow Wolf has raised €2.4 million in equity from new and existing investors ranging from food industry veterans to music stars, new filings by the Newtownmountkennedy company established in 2013 show.

On December 30, Wicklow Wolf Brewing Company issued new shares for a cash consideration of €2,387,592. The largest investor in this transaction was Zatrix Holdings, the vehicle of Mary Ann O’Brien, the founder of chocolate maker Lily O’Brien’s.

O’Brien has invested in food businesses since she sold her own company in 2014, and Zatrix injected €376,442 into Wicklow Wolf’s latest funding round. She did not previously appear among the brewery’s shareholders – unless she was one of the unnamed business angels who backed the company through the Halo network in 2016.

The brewery also raised new funds from showbiz figures including existing shareholders Bono and the Edge, who contributed €327,000 between themselves. Meanwhile, Hozier, who lives a short hop away in Newcastle, has made his entry in Wicklow Wolf’s share capital with a €109,483 investment through his company Haskey Ltd.

From left: Wicklow Wolf Brewing investor Hozier and managing director Quincey Fennelly.

The second-largest single new investment was €286,015 and came from Zerlina Foods Investment, a company controlled by La Rousse Foods’ previous owners Marc Amand and Mary Massy. They had already backed Wicklow Wolf in earlier fundraising.

Another existing shareholder and director of the brewery, jelly bean millionaire Richard Cullen, injected a fresh €247,653 through his company Aberlour Investments. Among other Wicklow Wolf directors, former Kellogg’s executive Stephen Twaddell, Thomas Marsh, and a family member of Rory McGarry invested smaller amounts, as did the brewery’s founders Quincey Fennelly and Simon Lynch.

Oyster Capital, the investment firm led by tech tycoon Bill McCabe, had previously backed Wicklow Wolf and chipped in another €203,723.

€2.3 million accumulated loss

Wicklow Wolf Brewing’s latest accounts were to the end of 2019, the year when it completed a €4 million investment in a state-of-the-art brewery on a hillside at the foot of the mountains. Funding for the project came from a €2 million equity raise, which brought in existing shareholders in 2016, and convertible loan notes, which had an outstanding value of €2.4 million at the start of last year. It had no other significant debt.

The equity allocated on that date results from the conversion of these loan notes to equity, Wicklow Wolf managing director Quincey Fennelly told The Currency, welcoming the “positive story” in re-investment by existing backers. He said capital expenditure was continuing to add tanks, beer lines to the brewery. “We still need more capacity,” he said, adding: “A lovely visitor centre will be ready for the end of the lockdown.”

Enterprise Ireland has also backed the company through redeemable shares and converted part of its investment into ordinary shares on December 30.

Accounts show that Wicklow Wolf burned through its cash reserves during the new brewery’s construction, with just over €100,000 left at the start of last year. The company recorded a €1.3 million loss in 2019, bringing accumulated losses of €2.3 million. It needed a capital boost to develop trading on the back of its investments and start reaping rewards from its shiny new brewing facility.

The vote of confidence displayed in the funding round closed over Christmas with savvy investors, both existing and new, places it in a position to do just that. Signalling its new focus on commercial expansion, the company is now hiring a digital marketing executive.