• Kwaga’s founders Martin Fitzgerald and Mike McGrath

    Supermarket supplier platform Kwayga raises €1m

    The investment was led by The Redesdale Food & Beverage Fund.

    Read More

  • Redesdale Invests in Plant-Based Fiid Food Group

    Read More

  • Female representation in business

    John Conroy, Interview with Caroline Allen, Laois Today

    Read More

  • Redesdale takes first bite out of food fund

    Investment firm takes an almost 40pc stake in Louth-based Soothing Solutions, valuing the company at €2.5m

 

The Fund of Choice for Food Start-ups

The Redesdale Food & Beverage Fund is an exciting new €75m fund, focused on investing in the future of food, and backed by some of Ireland’s best known and most accomplished financiers, business leaders and commercial scientists. The fund has recently completed a first close of €27m.

The fund targets food, beverage and nutrition companies, led by ambitious entrepreneurs.

The strength of our team and the depth of our corporate and relationship presence allow us to identify and attract superior deal flow, mentor our portfolio of companies and support them in scaling effectively and in developing successful exit strategies.

Investment Focus

We welcome approaches from across the Food & Beverage universe and we have particular interest in start-up companies offering:

  • International scalability

  • Products with market disruptive potential, based on new understandings

  • Products with health benefits

  • IP protection

  • Sustainability advances

  • Diversity in ownership and leadership

We believe female entrepreneurship will be a key feature of the future successful development of the Irish Food & Beverage sector.

 

Investment Philosophy

Our investment philosophy is simple: we invest in people. Good people create the right products and the right opportunities. Good people set the right standards of behaviour and governance within companies. Good people make good partners.

Strong Financial and Reputational Backing

 
 

The Redesdale Food Fund itself is backed by a powerful mix of sovereign, financial, and corporate investors, bringing solid financial support and a range of relationship and development possibilities.

Sovereign: Enterprise Ireland
Financial: Redesdale Group and Lord Abbett
Corporate: Musgrave Group, Coca Cola, Monaghan Mushrooms, and Tate & Lyle.

Our Backers

Our Team

Investment Team

Our investment team is uniquely qualified to understand the Irish food entrepreneur.

John Conroy

Co-founded Merrion Capital and led the firm through its major expansion period. As a corporate financier, he has been centrally involved in some of the landmark deals in the Irish market and he has also chaired two multi-billion euro investment funds. He is the founder and CEO of financial services group, Redesdale Group.

Owen Murphy

Is one of the most experienced venture capital executives in Ireland, having been a founding director and shareholder in ACT Venture Capital in 1994. Since leaving ACT in 2009, he has been an active director and investor in a number of early stage companies. He has completed over 200 transactions including funding rounds, syndications, restructurings, refinancings and exits.

Michael Cantwell

Was the Director of Food and Beverages for Enterprise Ireland. He was a member of its Investment Committee and Executive Committee. He has considerable experience of working with and growing Food companies at all stages , particularly at start up stage. Michael initiated development programmes such as Foodworks and EI’s partnership growth programme with Coca Cola.

John Stapleton

Is an investor, advisor and NED; he is an advisor to the Bord Bia/ EI/ Teagasc entrepreneurial start-up programme FoodWorks and is investor-director at Mission Ventures, a business accelerator building UK challenger brands. John previously co-founded The New Covent Garden Soup Co Ltd and Little Dish, successfully exiting both.

Eamonn Coghlan

Is one of Ireland’s best known and most admired sports people. He represented Ireland at three Olympic Games and he was World Champion at 5,000m in 1983. He has carried his determination, passion and pursuit of excellence as an athlete into other spheres since his retirement as a professional athlete. He was appointed to the Irish Senate in 2011 - 2016 where he focused on Physical Education and healthier living.

Andrea Callan

Is a qualified barrister and is employed on a consultancy basis as Redesdale Group's Regulatory and Compliance Officer. She is a former Head of Risk and Compliance at a leading Dublin Stockbroker and was Managing Director at a leading financial services company (2008 to 2011) with responsibility for management of the risk and compliance environment.

Boris Chamorro

Is a financial accountant and analyst for the Fund. He worked in the US for 20 years, as a tax manager and due diligence expert. In the latter roles, he worked primarily on investments in the dairy, food, and beverage industries. Boris also managed and assisted in the development of a road trip mobile iOS app.

John Conroy
(Managing)
Entrepreneur in the
Capital Markets

Owen Murphy
Venture Capital Professional

Michael Cantwell
Former Head of
Food and Beverage
Enterprise Ireland

John Stapleton
Food Entrepreneur and Mentor

Investment Committee

• Michael Cantwell

• Owen Murphy

• John Stapleton

• John Conroy

 

Stan McCarthy
Committee Chairman
Former CEO,
Kerry Group plc

 

Advisory Board

Niall FitzGerald KBE
(Chairman)
Chairman of Olam Food Ingredients and former Chairman and CEO of Unilever plc

Prof. Fergus Shanahan
Distinguished medical clinician and world-renowned authority on Microbiome

Prof. Dolores O’Riordan
Director of University College Dublin’s Institute of Food and Health and UCD’s Vice-President for Global Engagement.

 
 

Mary Ann O’Brien
Entrepreneur and founder of Lily O’Brien’s Chocolates

Michael Carey
Food Investor and former Chairman, An Bord Bia

Scott Whitney
CEO, Green Harvest One Corp (clean-tech) and
advisor to EQT Partners.
Former athlete and marathon competitor

 

Marketing and Operations

Eamonn Coghlan
Marketing Manager
World Champion at
5,000 metres

Andrea Callan
Compliance Officer

Boris Chamorro
Analyst & Financial Accountant

 
 
 

Partnership Approach

The Fund looks to take minority stakes in companies whose owners/managers appreciate what we can bring in terms of business development. We do not want to control your business; we offer a partnership approach in bringing capital and business experience to the table. We have carefully built our own offering so that we can add value to our portfolio companies at critical stages along the development path.

Why Food?

The food industry is undergoing profound change with consumer trends driving demand for new food products to suit changing consumer tastes, lifestyles and attitudes to diet and health.

Food is the New Medicine and there is growing recognition of the health properties of food and food’s potential in the prevention and management of disease and illness - for example, Functional Foods/Nutraceuticals that address metabolic health, pre-diabetes, type 2 diabetes and obesity, as well as cardiovascular and brain health.

 
 

Portfolio

Our investment strategy combines financial returns with positive long-term social effects.

 

Contact Us

The Redesdale Food Fund is the Venture Capital arm of the wider Redesdale Group, which also provides Corporate Finance and Wealth Management services.

LGBTQ+ friendly