Galway entrepreneur 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.
Called Vyko Group, the company plans to raise €50 million to fund a number of acquisitions here in 2026.
McDonnell is seeking to put together a national platform of fashion, beauty and food brands that can be scaled for international markets under the Vyko umbrella.
In an interview with The Irish Times, Paris-based McDonnell (32) said Vyko was close to making its first two investments, with a third in the pipeline. She said Vyko had initially “scanned” 500 Irish brands, held discussions with 35 of them and is now at the “letter of interest” stage with two.
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One of these would involve an investment of about €500,000, while the other would be in the €10 million-plus range. Vyko will seek equity stakes of between 35 and 100 per cent in the businesses, she said.
Born in New York, McDonnell’s family returned to Ireland when she was five and settled in Galway a year later.
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.
Puig raised €2.6 billion in 2024 in what was Europe’s biggest stock market initial public offering (IPO). McDonnell spent five years there, latterly as global consumer acceleration director.
Before Puig, she spent almost two years with Google in Dublin as a luxury account manager, and held roles with Dior, LVMH and Monnier.
“Since 2019, I’ve wanted to create a structure in Ireland similar to LVMH, L’Oreal or Puig with a holding company, shared back office, experts across marketing and distribution and a focus on building Ireland’s first luxury goods group. Finally, the time is right,” she said.
“I was part of the IPO in Puig in 2024; it was the biggest IPO in Europe and they gave €80 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.”
She said its first three deals will be around fashion because they’ll have the most back office synergies.
“One of the first things that we’ll do is start developing fragrances for these brands, because that is your path, not just probability, but scalability as well,” she said.
“Fragrances are more accessible in terms of their price point. They have a longer shelf life. They don’t have the seasonality that a collection does within fashion, where you have to get it out the door within a three-month period.”
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As well as back office synergies, McDonnell says Vyko should also be able to negotiate better deals with retailers.
“Imagine we’re going to a Brown Thomas or Selfridges. We’re saying, ‘right, we have five fantastic brands, three in fashion, and two in beauty. We’d like to negotiate our trade plan for the year. And that’s how all other brands, for the most part, are being represented.”
As well as fashion and beauty, Vyko also sees “huge potential in luxury food items ... [and] we see a lot of interest in Irish jewellery as well”.
And Aran sweaters? “I’m very interested in Aran sweaters, but apply a luxury strategy and make sure that we actually give them the right value that we’re not making them in China, that they’re made here in Ireland.”
Looking out five years, McDonell hopes to have 10 brands under its umbrella, “that we’ve grown them all at least 100 per cent”.
She expects the first three investee companies to have combined sales of more than €25 million, with the goal of expanding that to €100 million within five years.
“It’s giving them the right technology for demand planning. It’s 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.”
