Investors include: Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Tru Arrow Partners, Alumni Ventures, Marcus Brauchli (former Executive Editor, The Washington Post & Managing Editor, The Wall Street Journal) and Alex Mather & Adam Hansmann (Founders of The Athletic), Richard Sarnoff (Chairman of Media, Education and Entertainment at KKR).
The Policy Economy Has Been Flying Blind
The systems used to understand policy remain fragmented and slow. State Affairs is building the real-time intelligence infrastructure to change that.
"Policy and regulatory markets are often more impactful to organizations than financial markets, yet everybody from voters to companies are often the last to know what's happening," said Evan Burns, co-founder and CEO of State Affairs. "State Affairs helps organizations proactively understand and engage with policy markets at scale across the U.S."
State legislative volume has surged. In 2025, state legislatures introduced more than 135,500 bills — up roughly 55% from 87,500 in 2024. It would take one person, reading nonstop, 8 hours a day, six years to read every bill introduced in statehouses last year.
AI-Driven Intelligence Built on Original Reporting and Government Data
Most AI systems are limited by the information already available to them. In policy, that creates a major gap. State government is where many of the country's most consequential decisions are being made, but state capitols remain undercovered, fragmented and difficult to track in real time.
State Affairs' newsroom produces more than 2,000 originally reported, nonpartisan articles each month, while its data teams gather and structure policy information from statehouses and agencies across the country. The platform turns that reporting, public government data and customer-specific context into real-time analysis, alerts, collaboration and action.
State Affairs has built an AI intelligence layer powered by the combination of:
- Exclusive daily reporting from journalists embedded in state capitols
- On-the-ground legislative and regulatory data gathering
- Structured government data across all 50 states and the federal government
"We need more nonpartisan journalism to build a better democracy and future," said Jamie Roberts Seltzer, co-founder of State Affairs. "Because nearly all state capitols are underreported on, the exclusive reporting and original data gathering that powers our platform not only provides more comprehensive information, it also mandates that we further invest into objective journalism to widen the moat of the intelligence you get on State Affairs versus anywhere else. We intend to hire many more full-time reporters over the next few years."
Built for the Institutions Shaping Policy
State Affairs is already in active use by one-third of state and federal elected officials, as well as major enterprises including Walmart, Mastercard and McDonald's.
Lawmakers, legislative staff, agencies and enterprise teams use the platform to:
- Understand legislation, regulation, hearings and political developments in real time across all 50 states and the federal government
- Analyze and compare bills and policy trends across states
- Collaborate internally and externally around the policy developments that matter most to their organizations
- Coordinate outreach and advocacy efforts
Founded at the Intersection of Media, Technology and Policy
State Affairs was founded by Evan Burns (co-founder and former CEO of the Finnish Long Drink (acquired)) and Jamie Roberts Seltzer (co-founder and General Partner at LightShed Ventures). Veteran journalist Alison Bethel serves as Founding Editor-in-Chief and Chief Content Officer.
About State Affairs
State Affairs is the AI-powered intelligence platform built for the institutions navigating the modern policy economy. Operating at the intersection of technology, nonpartisan journalism, and government, State Affairs deploys one of the nation's largest networks of embedded statehouse reporters to build a proprietary, human-driven data moat. This exclusive daily reporting feeds an advanced AI knowledge graph that tracks every bill, regulation, and hearing across all 50 states and the federal government. With $70 million in funding, State Affairs provides the personalized, real-time intelligence that elected officials and major global enterprises rely on to seamlessly track relevant legislation, collaborate, and act on policy.
SOURCE State Affairs
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