Online wine specialist Naked Wines notched up a 40% rise in sales over Christmas and shipped a record 13 million bottles last year.

Naked Wines, which was founded six years ago, has a distinctive business model through which it sells to 250,000 ‘angel investors’. It has a waiting list of 45,000.

Average spend per bottle rose 7% year on year to £8 and the retailer intends to raise £70m this year through crowdfunding – that is its customers. The money will be invested in independent producers.

Naked Wines founder and chief executive Rowan Gormley said: “It’s incredible to think we have a quarter of a million angels – especially for a company that didn’t exist six years ago.

“Our bumper Christmas means we can invest even more in small independent winemakers around the world in 2015.

“We have some truly great wines in the pipeline, which I believe will lead to another year of strong growth.”