“From Monk To Startups: One Founder’s Unusual Path To Building Government Software”

Key points

• Lilly Chen spent years as a monk before pursuing higher education and tech work.
• She attended Colorado College without a high school diploma, graduating in 2019.
• Chen worked at Facebook building infrastructure for AI model training before quitting.
• In 2021 she founded FSH Technologies, later securing a $25 million total funding with a $20 million Series A.
• FSH develops software for government tasks like school food services and public records management.