Funds for Real-Time Legislative Data Firm State Affairs

Washington company State Affairs has secured $70 million in funding. The firm combines exclusive journalistic reporting from state capitols with legislative, regulatory and other data gathered from states and at the federal level, both through structured government sources and on-the-ground gathering.

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 US. Its platform uses AI to analyse and report on this in real time. The company was founded by Evan Burns and Jamie Roberts Seltzer, with veteran journalist Alison Bethel serving as Founding Editor-in-Chief and Chief Content Officer.

Clients are lawmakers, legislative staff, agencies and enterprise teams looking to understand legislation, regulation, hearings and political developments in real time across all 50 states and the federal government; analyze and compare across states; collaborate internally and externally around key policy developments; and coordinate outreach and advocacy efforts.

The new funds will accelerate development of the firm's real-time intelligence platform for the policy and regulatory markets, and come from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Tru Arrow Partners and Alumni Ventures, in addition to a number of individual investors.

'Policy and regulatory markets are often more impactful to organizations than financial markets,' says CEO Burns, 'yet everybody from voters to companies are often the last to know what's happening. State Affairs helps organizations proactively understand and engage with policy markets at scale across the US.' Roberts Selzer says nearly all state capitols are underreported on, and the company's need for exclusive reporting and original data gathering 'mandates that we further invest into objective journalism to widen the moat of the intelligence you get on State Affairs versus anywhere else.' He adds: 'We intend to hire many more full-time reporters over the next few years.'

The company is online at www.stateaffairs.com .