When Eoin Bara began exporting his craft spirit brand, Mór Irish Gin, he was stunned by how outdated the global alcohol trade was. Despite being a €1.3 trillion industry, it still relies heavily on emails, spreadsheets, and phone calls to function.
That realisation led him to found Tipple, a Dublin-based startup building digital infrastructure for the drinks industry, that has just raised €4 million in Seed funding to modernise alcohol trade systems and reduce inefficiencies.
The round was led by Quadri Ventures, with participation from Form Ventures and 7percent Ventures.
“I watched bars struggle to understand their margins, suppliers drown in admin for months, and brands operate completely blind to where their products were actually selling,” said Eoin Bara. “Despite being one of the world’s largest industries, alcohol distribution is stuck in the dark ages.”
Founded in 2022, Tipple is building the digital infrastructure for the global alcohol industry. The company’s platform streamlines operations across procurement, logistics, and payments, serving everyone from global brands, alcohol distributors and local bars.
Tipple emerged from Bara’s personal experience navigating the world of cross-border alcohol distribution. That insight has driven Tipple’s mission: to power one in five transactions in the vast and fragmented alcohol industry.
The alcohol market spans production, distribution, and retail across 190+ countries, yet remains reliant on manual processes, fragmented systems, and opaque data. Despite its massive scale, Tipple says the industry is hindered by systemic challenges: outdated supply chain logistics, lack of real-time data transparency, and inefficient payment systems that burden suppliers, distributors, and retailers alike.
Tipple aims to reimagine this ecosystem with a scalable, tech-first platform designed to bring transparency, efficiency, and trust to all stakeholders.
“When you’ve actually lived the problem, you understand it differently,” Bara explained. “Tipple isn’t just building a feature, we’re building the foundational rails for an industry that’s ripe for transformation.”
According to Tipple, they are now the choice for over 500 brands, including three of the world’s top 10 alcohol companies, including Diageo and Brown-Forman, alongside disruptive brands like AU Vodka.
The Seed funding will support Tipple’s international expansion and deepen its technical integrations as the company works to modernise the alcohol industry.
The funding will accelerate Tipple’s mission to streamline operations for an industry struggling with inefficiencies that cost businesses millions annually in lost time, errors, and missed opportunities.
“Tipple is tackling one of the largest problems in one of the world’s largest, yet most antiquated industries,” said Andrew Drylie, Principal at Quadri Ventures.
“Success can only be achieved through a deep level of domain expertise. The Tipple team possesses a blend of technical and market knowledge that is hard to come by. We are confident that Tipple has the potential to become the infrastructure standard for the global alcohol supply chain,” Drylie continued.
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2025/09/bottoms-up-dublins-tipple-raises-e4-million-to-fix-the-global-booze-supply-chain/
