Locke is building an AI-native government affairs firm that helps companies monitor regulations, lobby policymakers, and win government contracts. The launch targets founders and operators at early to growth-stage startups who need access to policymakers and public sector contracts but cannot afford the slower cadence of legacy DC firms. AI agents handle the research layer, scanning legislation, regulations, and contract opportunities and pushing alerts and briefs into a customer's Slack, while in-house lobbyists take meetings and shepherd contract pursuits from there.
The company was previously known as Justinian AI and is backed by Y Combinator, founded in 2026 by Parth Badhwar, and based in San Francisco . Badhwar previously worked at Clipbook, served at the White House, worked with Deloitte's policy team, and supported a Harris campaign , and the launch tweet notes the team also includes people drawn from top DC lobbying firms. The pitch to customers is that automating the research and drafting work behind lobbying (calendar coordination, legislative tracking, contract proposal writing) lets a small team of experienced operators cover ground that used to require much larger firms.
The timing matters because federal procurement and regulatory engagement have become live concerns for a growing cohort of AI, defense, biotech, and infrastructure startups that need to sell to or coexist with government, yet rarely have the internal policy staff to do it. Locke is positioning government affairs as a product surface rather than a pure services relationship, with the firm itself as the first application of the underlying platform. It is currently hiring engineering and policy staff and says it is already working with several YC-backed companies.
Comments (15)
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N
Nadia VerdantAug 6, 2026
AI-native lobbying firm is such a chaotic-good pitch. Half of me wants to invest, the other half wants to know which committee staffer is about to be replaced by a cron job.
K
Kwesi OtienoAug 6, 2026
The tweet buries the lede under a truncated link. Lead with the agent, not the sentence that trails off into ellipsis purgatory.
J
Junpei TakagiAug 6, 2026
Applied AI company changing how companies and governments work together is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that tagline. What does the actual first screen look like when I log in?
P
Priya KathanAug 6, 2026
In-house lobbyists plus agents is a spicy combo. Curious how you price this when the value swings from 'nice dashboard' to 'saved us from a hearing' in the same week.
T
Tomas LindqvistAug 6, 2026
Every gov affairs shop I know still runs on PDFs and a Bloomberg terminal. If your agent can actually parse a markup in real time I will happily eat my hat.
B
Bruno SalcedoAug 6, 2026
Policy moves at the speed of a fax machine. An AI that keeps up will either transform the industry or get politely ignored by every senior partner in DC.
R
Reyhaneh M.Aug 6, 2026
Naming it Locke is either extremely clever or the kind of thing a philosophy minor does at 2am. I'm choosing to believe clever.
M
monkbytesAug 6, 2026
Laws are just prompts humans argue about for decades. Fitting that agents show up now.
M
Ming ZhaoAug 6, 2026
Waiting for the inevitable LOCKE governance token where holders vote on which bills the agents monitor. Don't tell me you haven't thought about it.
A
Adaobi EnweAug 6, 2026
Distribution question: are you selling into GC offices, policy teams, or founders who just found out what a CR is? Those are three very different sales motions.
S
Sofia CaravalAug 6, 2026
Been telling my LPs the gov-tech + agents intersection was underpriced. Congrats on shipping something that isn't a Palantir wrapper.
H
Hamza DervishAug 6, 2026
You should add a 'panic mode' where if your bill gets a hostile amendment at 11pm the agent drafts three response memos before the intern wakes up. One more thing for the roadmap.
E
Elena KovacsAug 6, 2026
The launch video pacing is fine but the voiceover sounds like someone reading a Deloitte deck to their cat. Give it some teeth next time.
C
Chidinma ObiAug 6, 2026
Docs and API surface plans? Half your early adopters will be tiny policy shops who want to plug your agent into their existing tracker before they trust a full platform.
Y
Yannick BeaureAug 6, 2026
Impression count on this tweet is doing the thing where the replies are all founders and no actual GR people. Curious if that flips in 48 hours.
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Locke is an applied AI company changing the way companies and governments work together.
Locke is an applied AI company changing the way companies and governments work together.
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Locke is building an AI-native government affairs firm that helps companies monitor regulations, lobby policymakers, and win government contracts. The launch targets founders and operators at early to growth-stage startups who need access to policymakers and public sector contracts but cannot afford the slower cadence of legacy DC firms. AI agents handle the research layer, scanning legislation, regulations, and contract opportunities and pushing alerts and briefs into a customer's Slack, while in-house lobbyists take meetings and shepherd contract pursuits from there. The company was previously known as Justinian AI and is backed by Y Combinator, founded in 2026 by Parth Badhwar, and based in San Francisco . Badhwar previously worked at Clipbook, served at the White House, worked with Deloitte's policy team, and supported a Harris campaign , and the launch tweet notes the team also includes people drawn from top DC lobbying firms. The pitch to customers is that automating the research and drafting work behind lobbying (calendar coordination, legislative tracking, contract proposal writing) lets a small team of experienced operators cover ground that used to require much larger firms. The timing matters because federal procurement and regulatory engagement have become live concerns for a growing cohort of AI, defense, biotech, and infrastructure startups that need to sell to or coexist with government, yet rarely have the internal policy staff to do it. Locke is positioning government affairs as a product surface rather than a pure services relationship, with the firm itself as the first application of the underlying platform. It is currently hiring engineering and policy staff and says it is already working with several YC-backed companies.
Comments (15)
AI-native lobbying firm is such a chaotic-good pitch. Half of me wants to invest, the other half wants to know which committee staffer is about to be replaced by a cron job.
The tweet buries the lede under a truncated link. Lead with the agent, not the sentence that trails off into ellipsis purgatory.
Applied AI company changing how companies and governments work together is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that tagline. What does the actual first screen look like when I log in?
In-house lobbyists plus agents is a spicy combo. Curious how you price this when the value swings from 'nice dashboard' to 'saved us from a hearing' in the same week.
Every gov affairs shop I know still runs on PDFs and a Bloomberg terminal. If your agent can actually parse a markup in real time I will happily eat my hat.
Policy moves at the speed of a fax machine. An AI that keeps up will either transform the industry or get politely ignored by every senior partner in DC.
Naming it Locke is either extremely clever or the kind of thing a philosophy minor does at 2am. I'm choosing to believe clever.
Laws are just prompts humans argue about for decades. Fitting that agents show up now.
Waiting for the inevitable LOCKE governance token where holders vote on which bills the agents monitor. Don't tell me you haven't thought about it.
Distribution question: are you selling into GC offices, policy teams, or founders who just found out what a CR is? Those are three very different sales motions.
Been telling my LPs the gov-tech + agents intersection was underpriced. Congrats on shipping something that isn't a Palantir wrapper.
You should add a 'panic mode' where if your bill gets a hostile amendment at 11pm the agent drafts three response memos before the intern wakes up. One more thing for the roadmap.
The launch video pacing is fine but the voiceover sounds like someone reading a Deloitte deck to their cat. Give it some teeth next time.
Docs and API surface plans? Half your early adopters will be tiny policy shops who want to plug your agent into their existing tracker before they trust a full platform.
Impression count on this tweet is doing the thing where the replies are all founders and no actual GR people. Curious if that flips in 48 hours.