Simon Kelton

Inspirational Adventures is a zero-commission adventure travel marketplace disrupting an industry where online travel agents charge tour operators up to 30% per booking. In 18 months: 70+ operators signed, £100k ARR, £400k in trips sold saving operators £80k in commission, 1,200+ pipeline, 13k newsletter subscribers. Previously raised £300k pre-seed on Crowdcube. Now raising a £500k EIS Seed round with £100k committed. If you're an investor excited by travel, adventure, or marketplace businesses, drop me a message.

Inspirational Entertainment is a UK/US independent film and TV production company, which develops and produces incredible stories that inspire as much as they entertain. Most recently, we've executive produced Guy Ritchie's $100m TV series "Young Sherlock" for Amazon along with our partners at Motive Pictures and a team of exceptional producers and writers. "Young Sherlock" has set new records, reaching Amazon's worldwide number 1 show in just 24 hours. From life-changing moments like Eddie the Eagle’s infamous 90m ski jump in the Calgary Winter Olympics to Gavin Maxwell’s pioneering environmental work in his much-beloved book “Ring of Bright Water”, we look to bring beautiful, ambitious, uplifting and often true tales to the widest audience possible. I founded Inspirational Entertainment in 2019 with my wonderful wife Heather, a highly experienced film producer who worked for director Robert Zemeckis for 12 years. Our goal is to create inspirational British stories with international appeal. We currently have over 20 projects in active development. We began our careers in the entertainment business as a security guard and a catering assistant. We've come a long way since then and have been very privileged to work with some of the best directors in the world like Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, Guy Ritchie, Dexter Fletcher, Michael Grandage, John Stevenson, and Ash Brannon as well as some of the biggest stars like Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Hugh Jackman, Colin Firth and Joe Fiennes. Learn more at www.inspirationalentertainment.co.uk

An award-winning member of the Society of American Travel Writers, I've been a snowsports and travel journalist for over 30 years. I've been lucky enough to adventure all around the world doing everything from snowboarding over 450 descents in the Chugach Range in Alaska, including four premier routes, swimming with pink dolphins in the Amazon, playing football on a glacier at 15,500 ft in Afghanistan, to reading the Dalai Lama's palm in India. I'm the author, editor and publisher of "The Rich Bastard's Guide to LA", which Donald Trump described as "the funniest and most informative book on the subject" and "The Crush Guide to New York", which I wrote for Elisabeth Murdoch and Matthew Freud. I've also written for numerous magazines and newspapers, including the Telegraph Ski and Snowboard Magazine, TIME's Global Advisory, Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mail Ski and Snowboard magazine, Spear's, Harpers and Queen, Fall Line, Evening Standard, Ski + Board, and Worth.com amongst others.

Most recently, I originated, developed and packaged Guy Ritchie's "Young Sherlock" TV series, which we are currently executive producing for Amazon with our partners at Motive Pictures and an exceptional team of writing and producing partners. Prior to this I wrote the story, co-wrote the screenplay and co-produced "Eddie the Eagle" starring Taron Egerton and Hugh Jackman with Matthew Vaughn producing. The film was released by 20th Century Fox and Lionsgate UK and has made over $63 million worldwide to date. I was also an executive producer on the amazing documentary "Jeff Lowe's Metanoia," combining my love for storytelling and adventuring. The documentary went on to win over 20 film festival awards around the world. I have been commissioned to write and optioned over 30 screenplays to the likes of MARV, Columbia Studios, Harbour Pictures, Ingenious Media, Broken Road Productions, Hallmark Entertainment, Santa Monica Studios, Newscope and Lightstream Entertainment as well as having directors like Michael Grandage, Dexter Fletcher, Andy Fickman, Ash Brannon, John Stevenson, Kirk Jones, James Honeyborne, Nigel Cole and Declan Lowney attached to various projects. I earned Master's degrees in English Literature at Oxford and Stanford, where I was a Rotary International Scholar, before being accepted onto the prestigious MFA program in screenwriting at UCLA Film School. There I was lucky enough to win the first ever BAFTA LA Scholarship and subsequently co-chaired the BAFTA Los Angeles Scholarship committee helping steer the program to become the premiere film school scholarship in the world. I also won a Samuel Goldwyn Award, the Harmony Gold Award of Excellence and was a Finalist in the Disney Fellowship and twice a semi-finalist in the Nicholl Fellowship. I have also had a wonderful and often hysterical time working as voice talent in movies such as "Polar Express", "Beowulf" and "A Christmas Carol".

Pepper is the UK's market-leading technology platform for hospitality companies wanting to use white label apps for mobile payment and ordering as well as digital loyalty. We work with over 200 companies in over 1200 locations with well known brands like Prezzo, Young's, Brew Dog, itsu, GDK, Rick Stein, Brakspear and many more. I founded Pepper with my partners Charles Hall, Jack Ashton, Stuart Hall and Matt Scott. With the help of my extensive global network of friends, investors and professional colleagues we have raised over $13m so far to develop our platform. Our unique enterprise grade platform creates and supports fully merchant branded apps for traditional hospitality and retail businesses looking to harness the growing power of automated data-driven marketing and mobile commerce. Pepper's platform is fully EPOS integrated enabling the development and maintenance of customisable apps, which deliver a rich set of features including: discovery, super fast mobile payment, pre-order, digital loyalty, bar tab, pay from table, order from table, e-receipts, push notifications, refer a friend, surveys, direct marketing and sophisticated data analytics. By using Pepper, hospitality businesses and retailers can now gather actionable marketing and business data to understand their customers better and reward desired behaviour. This data can then be used in real time to improve the customer journey, increase operational efficiency, enhance customer engagement, drive footfall and grow basket size. Working with over 200 companies from independents through mid-market chains like Black Sheep Coffee and Eclectic Bars all the way up to enterprise companies like Young's Brewers, itsu and Revolution Bars in the UK, Pepper has seen its solution deliver improved queue times, increased sales and an ROI of up to 300%. For more information please visit www.pepperHQ.com

British and Olympic Ski Team member Adam Sullivan and I founded ASK4 Events in 2001 to help raise money for the British Olympic Ski Team. ASK stands for Art, Sport and Knowledge and the company has also successfully raised money in the creative world for aspiring screenwriters at UCLA for The British Academy of Film and TV as well as award winning journalists in The Society of American Travel Writers and Supporting Wounded Veterans to help our veterans recover by discovering the joys of skiing and mountains in the Klosters Ski Challenge. ASK4 Events has attracted donations of more than £1 million running successful events with numerous high profile sponsors like Christies, Land Rover, BMW, Veuve Clicquot, CMH Heliskiing, Nevica, British Airways, Cunard, Soneva Fushi, Volvo, and many more. In the last two years ASK4 raised £35,000 for Britain's top Winter Olympic skiers and the British Ski Academy, which trains them, and over £80,000 for Supporting Wounded Veterans, another fantastic charity that helps inspire our wounded veterans from injury to independence through events like their Ski Challenge. For more information please go to www.ask4events.co.uk

Luke Jones and I founded Cool Hand International to develop British properties with an international appeal that could be financed in Hollywood with British talent. My role as a creative producer and screenwriter at Cool Hand encompassed all aspects of the entertainment business from the initial development of ideas, optioning of properties, screenwriting, editing, foreign sales, finance models and fundraising, to managing talent, agency and studio relationships. In 2015, I was an Executive Producer on Jeff Lowe's remarkable true life story "Metanoia", which won 24 awards around the world including Best Mountaineering Film at the Kendal Festival and in Vancouver and Trento as well as being a Finalist at the Banff, Boulder and Sheffield Film Festivals. Cool Hand optioned and developed over twenty projects with well known directors like Andy Fickman, Simon Wells and James Honeyborne.

In 2005, Sonu Shivdasani invited me to become their first Soneva Global Ambassador. The Global Ambassador Program is a niche affinity programme which encompasses some of the most well-networked influencers, high net worth individuals and Soneva enthusiasts globally. Ambassadorship is by invitation only and is extended to those who advocate Soneva’s core values and SLOWLIFE philosophy of intelligent luxury. The program promotes Soneva’s premium products including Soneva Fushi in the Maldives and Soneva Kiri in Thailand. The program provides access and networking opportunities across geographic boundaries and includes posts throughout Europe, Former Soviet Union, Asia and India. The program has proven highly successful in relationship building and delivering key marketing messages via discrete word of mouth. For more information go to www.soneva.com

Stuart Hall, Matt Scott and I founded Webtab UK after purchasing the exclusive license to Webtab Inc's revolutionary mobile gifting platform. We brought the tech to the UK and launched Bartab, the first app on the platform, which was rolled out in 55 Geronimo Inns in London with the help of major drinks brands like SABMiller and Pernod Ricard.

I founded RBG Publishing with David Tusa in 1998 and am the owner and author of The Rich Bastard's Guides.™ "The Rich Bastard's Guide to Los Angeles" was voted Book of the Month in both Maxim and FHM, was listed as one of 25 must have items by GQ, was featured on Channel 7 Eyewitness News, CBS, BBC, Channel 4, and ZDF as well as in the Evening Standard, Daily Mail, Sunday Telegraph and numerous other publications. Few jobs in the world have been more fun than this one!