From backdrops to “save the date cards,” Tenley Pelissier has spent the last year helping people create the right vibe for their celebrations. 

Pelissier, an University of Georgia advertising and entrepreneurship student starting her senior year, launched Ten Event Rentals & Design during the UGA Entrepreneurship Idea Accelerator program. This summer, she scaled the business and started bringing in more revenue as part of the Summer Launch Program. 

Each team in Summer Launch receives $5,000 in seed funding and one-on-one guidance to help them bring in revenue. 

The growth Pelissier showcased at Summer Launch Demo Day on August 6 impressed the judges, who awarded her an additional $5,000 in prize money. 

“Since the end of May, I’ve spent every Tuesday in Athens working alongside an incredibly talented group of entrepreneurs and learning from professors, mentors, and investors who continually challenged me to think bigger — not just about how to grow Ten Events, but how to build a business that can scale while continuing to provide an exceptional experience for every client,” Pelissier wrote on LinkedIn. “Winning is exciting, but what I’m most grateful for is everything I’m taking with me into this next chapter of Ten Events.” 

Other businesses that wowed the judges included second-place winner MyFixam, an online platform allowing people to find, hire and pay tradespeople in Nigeria, created by computer science PhD student Jane Odum. Perceptuity, an app preparing young children to read based on cognitive science developed by educational psychology master’s student Maren Wallon, finished third. 

This year’s Summer Launch was the largest and most diverse in the program’s history because of a collaboration with Franklin CREATE!, a new entrepreneurship program housed in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. 

The 14 other contestants include: 

• The Clearapy, a remote mental health check-in service built for long-haul truckers created by economics and psychology major Alina Abraham 

• Secondbrain AI, a time and task management tool created by computer science student Sarayu Reddy 

• Stream AI, a personal training app created by computer science senior Seth Cohen 

• Spotr, a car buying software for independent car dealers that pulls together private listings in one place, created by computer science senior Jayden Mistry 

• The HealthLink Initiative, a platform for connecting uninsured patients with free health clinic services, created by economics senior and biology student Faith Huang 

• Zetadeck, a streamlined database system created by recent computer science graduate Ethan Mund 

• Sharpe Media, an email- and Instagram-based news service created by Andrew Sharpe, a recent MIS and finance major 

• Stir Blue, a functional beverage company created by psychology senior Aishi Dev 

• A Healthy Reminder, a wellness jewelry brand created by marketing junior Neeva Gokhale 

• Classic Closet Athens, a peer-to-peer clothes rental app created by human development and family studies major Callie Walton 

• Subleasa, a platform that helps renters find sub-leasers for their apartments, created by computational astrophysics PhD student Juvis Mbeng 

• Rivet Labs, a communication platform that streamlines communication for drivers, dispatchers, and riders for para-transit services, created by computer science junior Syed Rizwan Hoque 

• Discipler, a church mentorship platform created by management sophomore James Harden 

• Cura, a local events directory created by computer science sophomore Nandan Praveen 

The Entrepreneurship Program is a comprehensive academic program that encompasses experiential learning and equips students with the tools and resources to pursue startup ventures.