Civic

Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Industry: GovTech (AI for government communications and workflow automation)

MBA Founding Student Name(s): Jon Kokot – The Wharton School, MBA Class of 2025

Brief Description of Solution: Civic’s core product, Revere, is an AI-native platform that manages email intake, casework, and data analytics for government offices, starting with the U.S. Congress. Our platform automatically batches and tags constituent messages, assists with legislative research and office operations, and surfaces real-time sentiment and trend insights. Instead of wrangling legacy systems, staff can focus on policy and constituent outcomes.

Funding Dollars: Civic has raised $1M in equity and grant funding to date, including backing from Analog Ventures, Flybridge, The MBA Fund, and several angels, alongside four non-dilutive Wharton grants totaling $75K.

What led you to launch this venture? Before Wharton, I worked for the Navy on Capitol Hill, where I watched talented staffers spend most of their day triaging thousands of emails in systems that felt 30 years out of date. At the same time, I saw how a single missed constituent case or a slow response during a crisis could permanently damage trust in an elected official. Civic is my attempt to fuse that experience with modern AI.

What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with the venture? In eight months, we turned a slide deck into a FedRAMP-aligned, AWS-hosted platform that real congressional offices are willing to stake their operations on. Along the way, we’ve assembled a team of elite engineers and ex-Hill staff with unusual depth for a company at our stage.

What has been the most significant challenge you’ve faced in creating your company and how did you solve it? Breaking into Capitol Hill and receiving approval from the House IT office to become software vendor. We’re still in the approval process, but we’ve moved the ball by creating a great platform with input from over 40 House and Senate offices.

How has your MBA program helped you further this startup venture?Wharton’s Venture Lab and grant programs gave us guidance and non-dilutive capital needed to turn customer interviews into a real product. Wharton’s network of students and alumni in government, VC, and tech was extremely helpful.

Which MBA class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? Launchpad. I learned how to communicate with “friends of Civic” to better leverage our network.

What professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? Tyler Wry. Through his Entrepreneurship and Launchpad classes and guidance through the Wharton Accelerator process, Prof. Wry has been a big player for Civic.

How has your local startup ecosystem contributed to your venture’s development and success? We moved from Philadelphia to New York earlier this year. While in Philly, we were featured in Technical.ly magazine, which helped raise awareness about Civic and raise money.

New York has a ton of founders and VCs who have become great friends to Civic.

What is your long-term goal with your startup? Our Capitol Hill system is just the beginning. Our long-term goal is to build a universal CRM for governments. Starting with Congress, we want Civic’s agents to handle the first layer of government work, from triaging messages and coordinating casework across agencies to surfacing real-time sentiment for decision-makers. If we do our job right, interacting with government should feel less like filing a ticket into a black hole and more like texting with a responsive, well-informed team.

Looking back, what is the biggest lesson you wished you’d known before launching and scaling your venture? I made a few mistakes in the beginning when attempting to rush an RFP proposal process. Looking back, I would have consulted our advisors heavily to avoid wasting time and resources.

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