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Modus
YC S24Austin, US · Founded 2024 · 3 employees · 8 known investors
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Modus is an AI-powered sales planning and performance platform that integrates data from HRIS, ATS, Salesforce, and other sources to provide real-time sales intelligence for enterprise sales teams. The platform detects revenue gaps, ramp delays, territory misalignments, and rep underperformance while benchmarking compensation and capacity against industry data.
Also known as People OS Inc. · himodus
Founders & leadership· Y Combinator alumni (S24)
Modus was founded in 2024 by Lin Ling.
Investors · 8
How we know: Lightspeed Venture Partners's portfolio page · funding news · thesaasnews.com · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us
How we know: the VCSheet dataset · Not right? Tell us
How we know: Olive Tree Capital's portfolio page · the VCSheet dataset · Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us
How we know: the Y Combinator directory · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us
How we know: funding news · thesaasnews.com · Not right? Tell us
How we know: open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us
How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us
How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us
Funding
SEC filings, press & company announcements$85M disclosed across 1 of 2 rounds · 2026
- $85MSeed and Series AApr 2026 · 3 sources
Lightspeed Venture Partners (lead), Comma Capital
Source ↗
Source: company announcements and press reports — follow each round's link for the claim.
The YC application· Summer 2024 batch
Alumni Q&A
- What is your long-term vision? If you truly succeed, what will be different about the world?
- The founders aim to automate workforce management at scale and enable companies to operate efficiently with fewer employees.
Summarized from the founders' answers on their Y Combinator profile.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Modus develops software positioned as an "AI sales analyst" for sales planning and performance management. The product connects HRIS, ATS, Salesforce, Excel and other systems into a single data layer so that sales, finance and HR teams plan from the same headcount and capacity numbers rather than reconciling separate spreadsheets and systems. On top of that data, Modus runs continuous checks that surface issues such as revenue capacity gaps, slipped ramps, coverage shortfalls, misaligned territories and compensation that sits outside benchmark ranges, presenting them as alerts with suggested corrective actions.
Core capabilities described by the company include integrations with HR and recruiting systems for real-time capacity tracking; compensation benchmarking drawn from datapoints on commissions, bonuses and on-target earnings (OTE), including derived measures such as quota-to-OTE ratios and ramp time versus peers; territory planning that identifies where to expand or rebalance coverage; and scenario planning that simulates the impact of attrition, win rates and hiring delays on capacity.
The company frames its broader mission as workforce efficiency — helping organisations map revenue to employees and hire only the headcount they need, in response to over-hiring cycles that it says contributed to more than 200,000 layoffs. Its earlier positioning, as presented in its Y Combinator profile and launch post, was AI-powered headcount management bringing finance, HR and hiring managers into one "detect, inspect, correct" workflow.
Founding story
Co-founder and CEO Lin Ling encountered headcount and workforce planning problems directly as VP of BizOps at HashiCorp, where she helped scale the company from roughly 100 to 2,500 employees through its IPO; earlier she implemented ERP systems at five Fortune 500 companies as a Deloitte consultant and holds a bachelor's degree in economics, computer science and mathematics from NYU Stern. Co-founder and CTO Chris McCaw, previously at OneLogin and OpenGov, encountered similar issues scaling 40-plus person teams as a fractional CTO. The founders state the company was built on the belief that companies should operate with the fewest employees possible.
Business model
Modus sells business software to companies, marketed through demo requests and gated access on its website; the company describes an enterprise B2B software product rather than services.
Traction
Y Combinator lists the company as active with a team size of three.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
An early-stage, Y Combinator-backed entrant in AI-based workforce and sales capacity planning software.
Modus positions itself against manual spreadsheet-based planning and disparate departmental systems by combining live HRIS/ATS/CRM integration with a benchmark dataset, so that capacity, compensation and territory issues are surfaced proactively rather than reconciled after a quarter closes.
Technology
An AI engine layered over integrations with HRIS, ATS, Salesforce and Excel, combined with thousands of compensation and performance benchmark datapoints, used to detect anomalies, generate alerts and run scenario simulations on attrition, win rates and hiring delays.
Go-to-market
The company markets through its website with "Book a Demo" and "Request Access" calls to action, and used its Y Combinator launch post to solicit introductions to finance, HR and operations leaders responsible for headcount.
Enterprise and scaling companies' sales, finance, HR and operations leaders responsible for headcount, sales capacity, quota and compensation planning.
Geography
Headquartered in Austin, Texas, United States.
History
Modus was founded in 2024 and participated in Y Combinator's Summer 2024 batch, with Garry Tan as primary partner. It launched publicly as a headcount management product and subsequently presented itself as an AI sales planning and performance platform. The company is based in Austin, Texas and had a team size of three as listed by Y Combinator.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Related companies · 7
Companies working in the same space as Modus.
Timeline · 2
launches, deals, and filingsModus was part of Y Combinator's Summer 2024 batch, with Garry Tan listed as primary partner.
Modus published a Y Combinator launch post introducing headcount management software that integrates HRIS and ATS data to help companies detect, inspect and correct workforce plans.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
Legal entities · 1
corporate structureIn the news
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Modushimodus.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Modus do?
- Modus is an AI sales planning and performance platform that unifies HRIS, ATS and CRM data to flag capacity and revenue gaps.
- Who founded Modus?
- Modus was founded by Lin Ling in 2024.
- Who are Modus's investors?
- Modus's investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mango Capital, Olive Tree Capital, Y Combinator, Comma Capital, Insight Partners, Orange Collective, Umami Capital.
- How much funding has Modus raised?
- Modus has disclosed $85M raised across 1 of its 2 known rounds.
- Where is Modus headquartered?
- Modus is headquartered in Austin, US.