Davy Private Client are understood to have put together a group of investors who invested about €20m in funds managed by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners. Silver Lake was one of the biggest supporters of Alibaba, pumping about $825m into it in a number of tranches over several years.

The company has made about $4.6bn profit after Alibaba listed on the New York Stock Exchange last Friday.

Shares in the company jumped by more than a third within minutes of going public. The shares closed at $93.89 after opening at $68.

The Irish investors that were assembled by Davy are thought to have numbered in the “tens rather than hundreds”.

The consortium put in about €20m into the Silver Lake fund, which also invested in another Chinese retailer – JD.com.

JD.com went public in May and the move has been a success so far.

That firm’s shares priced at $19 a share when it began trading. Those shares had since gone up to $28.35 by the close of trading last Friday.

Alibaba was one of the biggest listings in history, valuing the firm at $231bn.

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