Shelly Sun Net Worth 2026: BrightStar Care Founder and $750M Sale

No reputable publisher has put a figure on Shelly Sun's personal net worth. The $500 million number this page used to show had no source and has been removed. What is documented is the deal that made her wealthy: in 2025 Sun, who now goes by Shelly Sun Berkowitz, sold a majority stake in BrightStar Care, the home care franchise she founded in 2002, to private equity firm Peak Rock Capital in a transaction that valued the company at $750 million. She kept a large minority stake and a board seat.

What is Shelly Sun's net worth?

Forbes, Bloomberg and Celebrity Net Worth do not publish an estimate for her. The terms of the Peak Rock deal show the scale without pinning down her share of it. Entrepreneur described it as a $750 million private equity exit, one of the largest ever in in-home care. A December 2025 Forbes contributor article said she remains a material shareholder and board member, and that her family office retained more than 30 percent of BrightStar's go-forward equity.

How much of the $750 million she personally received depends on how much of the company she owned before the sale, how much debt was involved and how much went to other investors, none of which has been disclosed. So we do not publish a number.

Yearly, monthly income and salary

BrightStar Care is private, and Sun's salary as CEO was never disclosed. Since early 2024 she has not been CEO. Her income now comes from her remaining BrightStar stake, her board role, her advisory work and investments made through her family office.

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How she built BrightStar Care

Sun is a certified public accountant who managed large teams in insurance before starting her company. In 2001 her family needed both non-medical help, such as bathing and meals, and nursing care for her grandmother, and no single company offered both. She told Entrepreneur that after her grandmother died she gave herself six months to solve the problem, and built BrightStar with a nurse on every team.

By 2024 BrightStar employed more than 15,000 caregivers and 5,700 registered nurses, and about 10 percent of its locations were corporate-owned, Home Health Care News reported. By late 2025 the system had more than 400 locations and over 20,000 professionals, according to Forbes. It ranked number 189 on Entrepreneur's 2025 Franchise 500.

She said she learned about franchising through family, after going through new-owner training for a hotel property her mother-in-law had invested in. Her biggest early obstacle was state licensing, because medical home care rules differ from state to state. She told Home Health Care News that 100-hour weeks during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 left her burned out, which led her to plan the CEO handover. She chose Ray after watching him run two Arizona franchise locations; he had earlier held health care leadership jobs in Japan and Europe with Johnson & Johnson, Gambro and Getinge.

Investing after the sale

Since the sale she has focused on backing other founders, especially women. Her family office, Next Phase Capital, formalized in 2025, had made eight investments by early 2026, five in female-founded brands, Franchise Times reported. They include a $6 million lead investment in Clementine's Ice Cream, an 11-unit St. Louis brand preparing to franchise. Earlier personal investments included Capriotti's Sandwich Shop, College Hunks Hauling Junk and a mental health platform. She also runs Founder 2 Founder, an advisory program that coaches founders through growth and sale.

She has long mentored other founders, including emerging franchisors through the International Franchise Association, and wrote a book on scaling a business, Grow Smart, Risk Less, she told Forbes.

Age, education and family

The old page gave her age, height and weight and said she married J.D. Sun and had twin sons. None of those details had a source. She now uses the surname Sun Berkowitz in business coverage, and we could not confirm current family details in a reliable source, so they are left out. The old claim that she earned degrees from the University of Tennessee and the University of Colorado is also unconfirmed; the sources we reviewed say only that she is a CPA.

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How this page was checked

The deal and company facts come from Entrepreneur, Forbes, Home Health Care News and Franchise Times. No reputable source has published her personal net worth, so we explain the $750 million deal instead of guessing her share.