Oakland – September 23, 2026 -- The Kapor Center unveiled its PRIME Alliance at the Clinton Global Initiative, selecting El Paso, Texas; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Oakland, California as the inaugural cohort for a multiyear program designed to fast-track partnerships between local governments and startups tackling housing, child care, health care, education, workforce development, and financial stability gaps.
Three cities commit to overhaul government-startup contracting
The initiative moves from research to implementation as the Kapor Center works with each jurisdiction to identify priority challenges and test new procurement and adoption models. Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee said the city intends to prove the model can work by opening doors to founders solving problems in areas that matter to residents. Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott, Jr. and El Paso Mayor Renard U. Johnson both committed their cities to removing system delays that have historically slowed adoption of effective solutions.
Report finds contracting delays cost the U.S. economy over $5 trillion annually
The alliance follows the Kapor Center's Breaking Down Barriers report, which surveyed more than 60 entrepreneurs and investors holding over 3,000 public-sector contracts. The report identifies drawn-out contracting timelines, hard-to-locate government buyers, inconsistent applications, and compliance burdens as the primary obstacles facing small companies. It estimates that unresolved gaps in housing, education, health care, and child care cost the U.S. economy more than $5 trillion per year, with a 2 percent improvement translating into roughly $100.7 billion in additional annual economic value.
Maryland pilot with Binti lifted foster-family placement rate by 33 percent
The report cites early state-level evidence supporting the model: a partnership with Binti increased the share of foster youth placed with families in Maryland by 33 percent. Chike Aguh, Head of Innovation and Strategy for Gap-Closing Startups at the Kapor Center, said founders consistently report that navigating government procurement is harder than building the solution itself. "Pairing the speed of a startup with the scale of government" is intended to compress deployment timelines from years to months, Aguh said.