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An 'aha' moment from my aunt's illness led me to build Waterlily
After her aunt's cancer diagnosis, Lily Vittayarukskul saw how little support families get. Now her AI long-term care platform Waterlily has raised $9.2 million.
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Lily Vittayarukskul was 16 when her aunt was diagnosed with cancer. Her mother became the primary caregiver, the family factory consumed everyone's evenings, and the strain quietly broke relationships that never fully healed. Years later, that experience became the reason she created Waterlily, an AI-powered long-term care planning platform that has raised $9.2 million.
Growing up, Vittayarukskul's world was NASA. At 11 she won a competition with a homemade water rocket and got to visit Kennedy Space Center. She interned there as a young teenager. Aerospace engineering looked like her path.
Then her aunt got sick.
"What I remember most wasn't a single diagnosis or conversation," she said. "It was the quiet."
Her family moved on autopilot – factory shifts, doctor visits, caregiving, no room to pause and talk about what was happening. Her aunt didn't speak much English, so her mother translated at every appointment. The financial toll mounted fast. Vittayarukskul spent her after-school hours at the factory, often until 10 or 11 p.m. Her aunt died, and the family was left with almost nothing financially and a tension that lingered.
Growing up in a first-generation immigrant family, she said she learned early that hard work alone doesn't guarantee security. "You have to create economic value," she said. That lesson shaped everything.