D.C.'s first deputy mayor of education seems to be a fan of working in stealth mode given that he discretely founded an edtech startup without just about anyone knowing.
Alongside Marguerite Roza, the director of Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, Victor Reinoso launched Decision Science Labs as both co-founder and CEO – a company which has secured more than $1 million in seed funding since June 2014 according to Washington Business Journal.
Decision Science Labs has not filed with the SEC, making it difficult to expand on the company's intentions, but Reinoso describes the startup on his LinkedIn page as a K-12 financial analytics and budgeting platform that "helps education leaders understand how school level spending aligns with performance and make spending decisions they feel good about." The software allows you to "see where spending goes" in order to facilitate "smarter resource allocation decisions."
As for why Reinoso has been so quiet about Decision Science Labs, he told WBJ that it's simply "not a sexy consumer businesses, it's as unsexy back-office as you can get." There's no need for all the hooplah around a company like that. He did end up sharing some details about Decision Science Labs, including that the company spent some time in NewSchools Venture Fund in Oakland, California. NewSchools is recognized for having invested approximately $180 million in more than a hundred education-focused startups since 1998.
A private and public sector entrepreneur, Reinoso is no stranger to the K-12 and higher education scene. He formerly served as senior advisor to the president of Georgetown University where he helped develop the university's massive open online course strategy, create the Edunomics Lab and launch a new Executive Master's in Leadership for public school leaders.
Perhaps best known for being the District's first deputy mayor of education, Reinoso was in charge of a more than $1 billion education budget in that role, spearheaded then Mayor Adrian Fenty's takeover of the public school system and helped to expand early childhood programs.
An experienced investor, Reinoso has invested in several edtech startups including TenMarks (which was acquired by Amazon), D.C.-based LearnZillion and Ellevation Education.
