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The launch of Hamlet<\/a> was quite personal for Sunil Rajaraman.<\/p>\n Back in 2022, he ran for city council in a small California town. He lost, but the moment forever changed the way he saw the place \u2014 and local governments, for that matter. <\/p>\n \u201cI was trying to become a better candidate,\u201d he recalled to TechCrunch. \u201cI wanted to understand how my city actually worked, what decisions had been made, why, who said what. And I couldn\u2019t figure it out. It\u2019s a total black box, and almost intentionally opaque.\u201d<\/p>\n Since COVID, towns across the nation have started recording and posting their city meetings online. That gave Rajaraman an idea: a company that helped people understand what was happening in local governments. That same year, in 2022, he launched Hamlet to do just that.<\/p>\n \u201cWe use AI to process thousands of hours of city council and planning commission meeting videos and turn them into intelligence they can actually use,\u201d he said. He said these videos are better than meeting minutes because those documents are just someone\u2019s interpretations of what happened. \u201cThe video doesn\u2019t lie.\u201d<\/p>\n At first, he thought it would be a media company, but then real estate developers and political action committees started reaching out. Rajaraman realized that private companies have to deal with local governments, too, and they also want more insight into what is happening in those city council meetings.<\/p>\n For enterprise customers, the company helps track agendas and alerts them when relevant topics are addressed across target cities. It also synthesizes what happened after meetings, so they don\u2019t have to watch hours-long videos, and it lets them search the video archive to see, for example, when and how a competitor was mentioned in a local government setting.<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<\/span> Hamlet has raised around $10 million in venture funding to date, from backers including Slow Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Bana Capital, and Kapor Capital. \u201cWe want to become the \u2018Bloomberg\u2019 of this space, so to speak,\u201d Rajaraman said.<\/p>\n On Friday, Rajaraman announced he is expanding the company to launch Hamlet TV as a way to help keep regular citizens informed of what is happening inside their governments. The streaming channel is on TikTok<\/a>, YouTube,<\/a> AppleTV, and Instagram<\/a>, and will spotlight important moments from council, commission, and school board meetings.<\/p>\n Rajaraman said his company has processed thousands of hours of government meetings for government customers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen meetings that have lasted 15-plus hours without recess,\u201d he said. He and his team started curating funny moments from those meetings, and they thought it was a good idea to use humor to get people more invested in the U.S. democracy. \u201cIf you show people procedural videos, they are just not going to care. But if you show them the funny stuff, they\u2019ll watch.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n The most surprising thing he and his team have seen so far on Hamlet TV has been someone dressing up as a cockroach to address their city council about a pest problem. But it\u2019s not the funny stuff that surprises him, he said. \u201cIt\u2019s how consequential these meetings are and how invisible they remain.\u201d<\/p>\n He cited an example from earlier this year when the Tucson city council rejected Amazon\u2019s $3.6 billion data center. He said that the decision came after months of planning, but only a few people likely watched those videos to understand why it happened. \u00a0<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t Rajaraman\u2019s first time running a business \u2014 or a media outlet. He co-founded the analytics platform Scripted and was twice the Entrepreneur in Residence at Foundation Capital. He also ran a publication called The Bold Italic and then sold it to Medium.<\/p>\n He knows Hamlet TV probably won\u2019t be a money maker and reiterated that he\u2019s doing this to get people more involved with the state of the country\u2019s democracy. He also plans to give away the Hamlet tool to local journalists for free. \u201cData is great, but context matters so much,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Next, the Hamlet company is looking to work with government affairs, advocacy organizations, and renewable energy developers. \u201cDemocracy works better when people are watching,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to make watching possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n