• Lily Vittayarukskul abandoned aerospace after her aunt's cancer diagnosis, which caused severe financial pressure on her family.

• Inspired by this experience, she founded Waterlily, an artificial intelligence platform for long-term care planning.

• The application offers personalized predictions and funding strategies, factoring in users' health, finances, and family situation.

• The company's goal is to prepare families for the practical and financial challenges of old age.

• Since starting operations, the business has managed to raise $9.2 million in capital.

As a child of a first-generation immigrant family, Lily Vittayarukskul grew up knowing the importance of money and holding one dream: to become an aerospace engineer.

At 11, she participated in a NASA competition and won it. Later, as a teenager, she also interned at NASA.

However, when she was 16 years old, her aunt was diagnosed with cancer.

Her illness changed the course of her entire family. And her own.

Today, Vittayarukskul is 30 years old and is not building rockets as she had dreamed.

The ordeal with her aunt's health inspired her to turn in other directions: to create a company that helps families prepare for the financial impact of long-term care for a family member.

The result? Waterlily, which she co-founded and currently leads as chief executive officer.

Waterlily

Essentially, it is an AI-powered long-term care planning platform that helps users estimate when they might need long-term care, what its cost could be, and how to cover it financially, taking into account their health condition, finances, and family situation.

The platform provides personalized predictions and funding strategies, including insurance solutions, savings, and care plans, to help families prepare for the financial and practical challenges of old age.

Since launching operations, the company has raised $9.2 million in capital.

From loss to Waterlily

Speaking to Business Insider about her trajectory, Vittayarukskul focused particularly on the period of her aunt's battle, which proved to be of decisive importance for her as well.

"My aunt didn't speak English well, so my mother acted as the interpreter at doctor appointments. My family quickly realized there were expenses we hadn't anticipated. We also realized that caring for a person with a serious illness went far beyond medical appointments," she noted, mentioning that what she remembers most from that period is not the diagnosis itself or the relevant discussions, but the silence.

"Everyone in my family was exhausted, running from work to medical appointments and caregiving responsibilities, without ever pausing to discuss what was happening. We were all operating on autopilot because there was simply too much to be done," she explained.

"My mother became my aunt's primary caregiver. The rest of us worked at the factory we ran whenever we could. I would go to my parents' factory after school and often stayed there until 10 or 11 at night before returning home," she continued, emphasizing that she realized the true cost of the situation much later.

"Our family relationships were strained. Financially, we had almost nothing left. There were mutual accusations, tension, and isolation, situations that persisted long after my aunt's death," she added.

The illness and loss marked her. Following her aunt's death, she began moving away from aerospace and asking herself why families like hers had to manage one of their most difficult moments with so little support.

"Growing up in a first-generation immigrant family, I always understood the importance of money. My parents worked hard, yet I learned early on that hard work alone doesn't guarantee financial security. You have to create financial value. That lesson shaped almost every decision I made since," she remarked, explaining that although she still loved engineering and building things, she realized she could apply those skills to a field that fulfilled a much more personal need.

For nearly a decade, she worked in product and engineering roles at early-stage companies, while learning as much as possible about healthcare, financial services, and underserved populations.

"I wanted to understand why planning for aging and long-term care was so fragmented," she explained. "No one seemed to be solving the problem in the way I believed it should be solved. That's why I co-founded Waterlily," she stated, noting that this work was far more difficult and complex than she had imagined.

At the same time, she discovered something. "After talking to thousands of families, one thing surprised me. I thought my family's experience was unusually painful. Instead, I found that many families facing severe long-term care needs experience financial pressure and broken relationships. The details differ, but the emotional cost often shows striking similarities," as she said.

Source: ink.com