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There is a growing pattern emerging among a certain class of UK entrepreneurs. After years spent in finance, deploying capital into other people’s businesses, some are stepping away from the City altogether. Not to retire, but to build.
Luke Davis is one of them.
After 15 years in Mayfair, where he founded IW Capital and helped grow it to around £150 million in assets, Luke made a decision that would have seemed counterintuitive even a few years ago. He left.
What followed was not a move into another fund or advisory role, but into sectors many institutional investors have historically struggled to price properly: coastal hospitality, cultural venues and consumer brands built around identity rather than utility.
Luke is now behind a portfolio of businesses that sit firmly in what might be described as the UK’s emerging experience economy. At its centre is Rockwater, a coastal hospitality platform that began with a single site in Hove and has grown into one of the busiest operations outside London, with revenues of between £5 million and £8 million per location.
This same logic underpins Luke’s move into consumer products. Drip, the premium water brand, has secured a global partnership with the UFC, positioning itself less as a commodity and more as a cultural brand. In a category increasingly shaped by identity and affiliation, the strategy is clear: build audience first, distribution second. Helm Gallery, meanwhile, combines exhibitions with a social environment, it challenges long-standing industry norms around accessibility, opening up a market that has often felt closed to wider audiences.
Where traditional investment models prioritised scale through efficiency, many of today’s operators are building through relevance, creating spaces and brands people actively choose to engage with repeatedly. For Luke the reality of building a business, particularly in sectors tied to place, culture and behaviour, is often more complex than it appears from the outside. It requires not just capital, but constant iteration, proximity to the customer and a willingness to shape the product in real time.
As regional economies continue to evolve and consumers place greater value on experience, identity and community, some of the UK’s most compelling growth opportunities are no longer confined to London or traditional sectors.
They are being built in places that, until recently, were largely overlooked. And increasingly, they are being built by people who once only funded them.
Also read: A Beginner’s Guide to Property Investing
Image source: Luke Davis – Helm Gallery
