From high school dropout to monk to $25M startup founder

Crunchbase NewsOct 28, 2026

October 28, 2026

Hi, there. There’s no single path to becoming a successful startup founder, but Lilly Chen is particularly unconventional. After leaving high school at 16 due to a serious illness, she spent two years as a monk, eventually enrolled in college without a diploma, briefly played video games professionally, and became an engineer at Facebook. Then she quit Big Tech to pursue a mission she couldn’t quite define yet: solving problems that actually mattered to people. Since then, her startup has raised $25 million to modernize some of the government’s least glamorous functions. Plus, a startup raises $28 million to keep legitimate business calls from being flagged as spam, we find that California startups have raised more money this year than the entire U.S. ever has in a single year, and our startup adviser columnist explains why growing revenue doesn’t always translate into a higher valuation.

🧘 From monk to $25M startup founder

Lilly Chen took an unconventional route into entrepreneurship. After spending two years as a monk while recovering from a serious illness, she enrolled in college without a high school diploma, became an engineer at Facebook, and eventually quit to pursue work she found more meaningful. That journey led her to found FSH Technologies, a startup modernizing government software for tasks ranging from school food services to public records management. The company has now raised $25 million. In the latest installment of our founder profile series, Chen explains how an investor backed her before she even had a startup idea and what her time as a monk taught her about building a business.

Related Crunchbase list: Global Venture Funding To AI Startups In 2026

😮 California startup funding in 2026 tops all-time annual U.S. sums

California-based startups have raised an unprecedented $385 billion so far this year, accounting for more than three-quarters of all U.S. venture funding, Crunchbase data shows. That’s more than all American startups raised in any previous year on record. Much of the windfall stems from enormous financings for OpenAI and Anthropic, which together have raised $217 billion in equity funding this year. But the concentration extends beyond those two AI giants: California companies have also secured nearly $62 billion in seed- and early-stage funding, or about 57% of the U.S. total at those stages. We look at where the money is flowing and how California’s dominance of American venture capital has grown.

📞 Numeracle raises $28M to keep legit calls from being labeled spam

Ever ignored a call because your phone labeled it spam? Sometimes, it’s actually a legitimate business trying to reach you. Numeracle has raised $28 million from Edison Partners to tackle that problem by verifying business identities and helping carriers distinguish legitimate calls from fraudsters. The company, which serves roughly 4,000 customers and became profitable this year, also sees a growing opportunity as AI makes impersonation more convincing.

📉 How companies can grow revenue and still lose value

Growing revenue doesn’t necessarily mean a startup is becoming more valuable — and founders who wait too long to sell may discover that the hard way. In his latest Crunchbase News column, startup adviser Itay Sagie illustrates how a hypothetical SaaS company could grow annual recurring revenue by 33% yet see its enterprise value fall 22% as valuation multiples compress.

Related Crunchbase list: Global M&A In 2026 For Venture-Backed Companies

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