Sunil Rajaraman launched Hamlet in 2022 after his own experience running for city council in a small California town. His campaign loss led him to realize how difficult it was for residents to access and understand local government decisions, which often remain unclear to the public.

After noticing that many towns began posting city meetings online during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rajaraman saw an opportunity to make these meetings more accessible. Hamlet uses artificial intelligence to process thousands of hours of city council and planning commission meeting videos, turning them into useful insights. Rajaraman believes that video records provide a more accurate account than written meeting minutes, which can be subjective.

Initially, Rajaraman envisioned Hamlet as a media company, but interest from real estate developers and political action committees showed that businesses also needed better access to local government information. For enterprise clients, Hamlet tracks agendas, sends alerts about relevant topics, summarizes meetings, and allows users to search video archives for specific mentions, such as competitors in government discussions.

To date, Hamlet has raised about $10 million in venture funding from investors including Slow Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Banana Capital, and Kapor Capital. Rajaraman describes his goal as becoming the “Bloomberg” of local government intelligence.

On Friday, Rajaraman announced the launch of Hamlet TV, a streaming channel designed to keep citizens informed about government activities. Hamlet TV is available on TikTok, YouTube, AppleTV, and Instagram, and features key moments from council, commission, and school board meetings. The company has processed thousands of hours of government meetings, some lasting over 15 hours without a break.

To engage viewers, Rajaraman and his team curate humorous moments from these meetings, believing that humor can help increase public interest in democracy. One memorable example included a person dressing as a cockroach to address a pest issue at a city council meeting. However, Rajaraman emphasizes that the real importance lies in how significant these meetings are, despite their lack of visibility. He pointed to the Tucson city council’s rejection of Amazon’s $3.6 billion data center as an example of a major decision that few people watched unfold.

Rajaraman has previous experience in business and media, having co-founded the analytics platform Scripted, served as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Foundation Capital, and managed the publication The Bold Italic before selling it to Medium. He acknowledges that Hamlet TV may not be highly profitable, but his main goal is to encourage greater public involvement in democracy. He also plans to offer the Hamlet tool free of charge to local journalists, emphasizing the importance of context alongside data.

Looking ahead, Hamlet aims to collaborate with government affairs teams, advocacy groups, and renewable energy developers. Rajaraman sums up the mission: “Democracy works better when people are watching. We’re trying to make watching possible.”

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