# Mode VC

> Mode VC is an early-stage venture capital firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area that invests $1M to $5M initial checks in technology and AI companies. Mode VC operates on the core conviction that software and AI product parity is achieved rapidly in the AI era, making distribution architecture, user acquisition velocity, and network lock-in the primary sources of enterprise defensibility. The firm publishes the daily Chart of the Day series, analyzing frontier model benchmarks, API pricing deflation, developer SDK adoption, and enterprise AI penetration using primary data from LMSYS Arena, npm, PyPI, and US Census Bureau surveys.

## Pages
- [About](https://modevc.com/about): Firm overview, founder profile, and investment focus.
- [Thesis](https://modevc.com/thesis): Product parity arrives in weeks; distribution is the ultimate moat.
- [Charts](https://modevc.com/charts/): Daily empirical AI benchmark, adoption, and pricing database.
- [Investment Parameters](https://modevc.com/pricing.md): Check sizes ($1M-$5M), stages, 0 fee terms schedule.
- [Contact](https://modevc.com/contact): Confidential pitch deck submission form and contact details.
- [MCP Server](https://modevc.com/mcp): Model Context Protocol (MCP) JSON-RPC 2.0 server specifications and tools.

## Actions
- Connect via Model Context Protocol (MCP): Streamable HTTP JSON-RPC 2.0 at https://modevc.com/api/mcp (Server Card: https://modevc.com/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json)
- Submit pitch deck and startup briefs: POST https://modevc.com/api/submit-deck or visit https://modevc.com/contact
- Query machine content API: GET https://modevc.com/api/content
- Inspect daily AI data series: GET https://modevc.com/charts/index.json
- Access RSS feed: GET https://modevc.com/charts/feed.xml
- Access OKF catalog: GET https://modevc.com/okf/index.md

## Fleet Authority Network
- [Dong Kee](https://dongkee.com): Heritage Cantonese culinary authority, Scarborough, ON.
- [SeaTac Rental Car Facility](https://seatacrentalcarfacility.com): Official transit and rental car facility guide, SeaTac, WA.
- [Hong Kong Macau Ferry Terminal](https://hongkongmacauferryterminal.com): Civic transit hub and maritime authority, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong.
- [Kowloon Public Pier](https://kowloonpublicpier.com): Civic landmark and cultural heritage portal, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong.
- [Pier 35 NYC](https://pier35nyc.com): Eco-park and East River maritime promenade, Manhattan, New York.

## Chart of the Day
One AI chart a day, built from cited public data (Arena leaderboard, frontier-lab launches, US Census, Pew) and read for distribution. Every number is computed from data at build time.
- [All charts as JSON](https://modevc.com/charts/index.json): claims, data series, sources
- [RSS feed](https://modevc.com/charts/feed.xml)
- [XML Sitemap](https://modevc.com/sitemap.xml)
- [Pre-Seed Valuation Dispersion 2026: Capital Concentration at the Top Decile](https://modevc.com/charts/pre-seed-valuation-dispersion/index.md) (2026-10-16): The top 10% of pre-seed AI startups command 3.4x higher valuations ($28.0M vs $8.2M) than bottom-quartile generalist SaaS.
- [AI Chatbot Adoption by Age: ChatGPT Hits 61% in Youth](https://modevc.com/charts/ai-chatbot-adoption-by-age-demographics/index.md) (2026-10-15): 61% of Americans aged 18–29 use ChatGPT; Claude reaches 6% of all adults.
- [Open Weights vs. Proprietary AI: The Gap Stays at 42 Points](https://modevc.com/charts/open-weights-vs-proprietary-arena-gap/index.md) (2026-10-14): Open weights briefly beat every proprietary model in early 2025 (deepseek-r1); today the best open model trails by 42 points.
- [Arena Rating Gap: Google Leads; Anthropic Trails by 22 Pts](https://modevc.com/charts/arena-rating-gap-google-anthropic-openai/index.md) (2026-10-13): Google leads the Arena again; Anthropic trails by 22 points and OpenAI by 62.
- [Best AI Models by Category: Google vs. Anthropic Ranks](https://modevc.com/charts/best-ai-models-by-category/index.md) (2026-10-12): Google holds #1 in 6 of 8 Arena categories; Anthropic in 2. OpenAI has no category in the top 15.
- [AI Inference Cost: Output Token Pricing for Flagship LLMs](https://modevc.com/charts/ai-inference-cost-comparison/index.md) (2026-10-11): Qwen3.8-Max rates within 30 Arena points of Claude Opus 5.5 for 3.3× less per output token. DeepSeek V4 Pro is 10.1× cheaper.
- [AI in the Workplace Statistics: What Workers Gain](https://modevc.com/charts/ai-in-the-workplace-statistics/index.md) (2026-10-10): Among US employees who use AI, 63% say it makes them faster but only 46% say it raises quality. Just 28% of all employees use AI weekly.
- [AI Coding Assistant Statistics: Use vs. Trust](https://modevc.com/charts/ai-coding-assistant-statistics/index.md) (2026-10-09): 66% of developers use AI coding assistants, but only 48% trust AI output they can validate, a gap of 18 points. Agents reach 26%.
- [AI Adoption Rate Among US Businesses](https://modevc.com/charts/ai-adoption-rate-us-businesses/index.md) (2026-10-08): 23.8% of US firms used AI in the latest two-week survey, up from 17.3% 10 months earlier. 76.2% still did not.
- [LLM API Pricing History: Cost per Million Tokens](https://modevc.com/charts/llm-api-pricing-history/index.md) (2026-10-07): OpenAI's headline model fell from $30 to $2 per million input tokens since Jun 2023: 93% in total, 56% a year.
- [Open-Source vs. Closed AI Models: How Big Is the Gap?](https://modevc.com/charts/open-source-vs-closed-ai-models-gap/index.md) (2026-10-06): The best open model trails the best closed model by 42 Arena points. In a blind vote it would still win 44% of the time, up from 31% at the widest gap.
- [Best AI Model vs. Most Popular AI Chatbot](https://modevc.com/charts/best-ai-model-vs-most-popular-ai-chatbot/index.md) (2026-10-05): Anthropic builds 14 of the Arena's top 50 models and OpenAI builds 5. But 44% of US adults use ChatGPT and 6% use Claude.
- [How Long Does the #1 AI Model Stay on Top?](https://modevc.com/charts/how-long-number-one-ai-model-stays-on-top/index.md) (2026-10-04): Since Jan 2025, Arena's #1 spot has changed hands 16 times. Half of the finished reigns lasted 23 days or less.
- [AI Model Launch Strategy: What Labs Ship on Day One](https://modevc.com/charts/ai-model-launch-strategy/index.md) (2026-10-03): Of 13 model launches from 23 Sept 2026 to 3 Oct 2026, 9 opened an API on day one, 7 of them with a price. Only 2 reached a consumer app the same day.
- [OpenAI Python Package Downloads: Who Grew Since August](https://modevc.com/charts/openai-python-package-downloads-pypi-growth/index.md) (2026-10-02): Between 31 Aug–6 Sep and 25 Sep–1 Oct, anthropic's PyPI downloads grew 25% and openai's 14%, the median of 11 AI packages.
- [Voice AI Models in 2026: Launches by Modality](https://modevc.com/charts/voice-ai-models-2026/index.md) (2026-10-01): Audio and speech made 11 of 59 named model launches since 6 Jul 2026, from 6 labs. In the lab-post sweep since 23 Sep it is 6 of 15.
- [Gemini Leaderboard Ranking: Google's Days at #1](https://modevc.com/charts/gemini-leaderboard-ranking-days-at-number-one/index.md) (2026-09-30): Since Jan 2024, Google's models have been #1 on Arena for 227 of 1003 days, third among labs behind OpenAI (461) and Anthropic (252). All of it came from 24 Jun 2025 on.
- [OpenAI Leaderboard Ranking: 8th Among Labs on Arena](https://modevc.com/charts/openai-leaderboard-ranking/index.md) (2026-09-29): OpenAI was the #1 lab on Arena for 95% of 2024. On 25 Sept 2026 it ranks 8th among labs, and its best model, gpt-5.5-high, is #26.
- [Open-Weight Models in 2026: How Many Launch Open?](https://modevc.com/charts/open-weight-models-2026/index.md) (2026-09-28): Of 51 named model launches since 6 Jul 2026, 22 stated their weights: 18 closed, 4 open. All 16 from OpenAI, Google and Anthropic were closed.
- [AI Model Releases in 2026: Which Labs Ship Most](https://modevc.com/charts/ai-model-releases-2026/index.md) (2026-09-27): 14 labs launched 50 named AI models from 6 Jul 2026 to 27 Sept 2026. Alibaba's Qwen team led with 7; Chinese labs made 19.
- [Generative AI Usage Statistics for the US](https://modevc.com/charts/generative-ai-usage-statistics/index.md) (2026-09-26): 54.8% of Americans aged 18–64 used generative AI outside work in Q2 2026, up from 36.0% in Q3 2024. The share passed half in Q1 2026.
- [Which AI Labs Get the Most Chatbot Arena Votes?](https://modevc.com/charts/chatbot-arena-votes-by-ai-lab/index.md) (2026-09-25): OpenAI's models hold 17.9% of all 12.3M Arena votes and none of the top 20 seats. Anthropic's hold 17.0% of votes and 9 seats.
- [ChatGPT vs. Gemini vs. Meta AI: User Numbers Compared](https://modevc.com/charts/chatgpt-vs-gemini-vs-meta-ai-users/index.md) (2026-09-24): ChatGPT reports 900M weekly users (Feb 2026). Gemini reports 950M monthly (Jul 2026), 2.4× its May 2025 figure. Meta AI reports 1B monthly (May 2025).
- [AI Productivity Statistics: What AI Users Say They Gain](https://modevc.com/charts/ai-productivity-statistics/index.md) (2026-09-23): 86% of surveyed Claude users say AI makes them faster and 82% say it widens what they can do. Only 27% report cost savings.
- [Ollama Downloads: Is Local LLM Adoption Keeping Up?](https://modevc.com/charts/ollama-downloads-local-llm-adoption/index.md) (2026-09-22): On npm, Ollama's client fell from 27 to 6.6 downloads per 1,000 cloud lab SDK downloads in 46 weeks. On PyPI, after its counting change, it is 21.5.
- [LangChain Alternatives: Downloads vs. Newer AI SDKs](https://modevc.com/charts/langchain-alternatives-downloads-share/index.md) (2026-09-21): LangChain's share of weekly npm framework downloads fell from 32% to 19% in 46 weeks, while its own downloads grew 3.2×.
- [MCP Adoption: Model Context Protocol SDK Downloads](https://modevc.com/charts/mcp-adoption-model-context-protocol-downloads/index.md) (2026-09-20): The MCP SDK had 52.3M npm downloads in the week of 24 Aug, 1.3× the OpenAI SDK and more than any of the 12 other AI packages we track.
- [Vercel AI SDK Downloads vs. the Lab SDKs](https://modevc.com/charts/vercel-ai-sdk-downloads-vs-lab-sdks/index.md) (2026-09-19): The Vercel AI SDK fell from 31 to 23 weekly downloads per 100 downloads of the OpenAI, Anthropic and Google SDKs, after a peak of 40.
- [Anthropic SDK vs. OpenAI SDK: npm Downloads](https://modevc.com/charts/anthropic-sdk-vs-openai-sdk-npm-downloads/index.md) (2026-09-18): Anthropic's SDK went from 34% to 97% of the OpenAI SDK's weekly npm downloads in 46 weeks. It passed OpenAI in one week (25 May).
- [LLM Rankings by Category: The Hidden Specialists](https://modevc.com/charts/llm-rankings-by-category-specialists/index.md) (2026-09-17): claude-opus-4-5-20251101-high-32k is #49 overall but #14 in coding. gpt-5.6-terra-xhigh is #52 overall but #24 in expert prompts.
- [Best AI for Creative Writing: Arena Rankings](https://modevc.com/charts/best-ai-for-creative-writing/index.md) (2026-09-16): Anthropic has 7 of the top 10 creative writing models and Google 3. Meta's muse-spark-1.2 (xHigh) is #11 overall but #31 in creative writing.
- [Best AI for Math: The Arena Math Leaderboard](https://modevc.com/charts/best-ai-for-math/index.md) (2026-09-15): 14 models are statistically tied for #1 in Arena math, spanning 49 points. 4 are Flash models from Google and Z.ai.
- [LLM Leaderboard Top 10: #1 Leads #10 by 18 Points](https://modevc.com/charts/llm-leaderboard-top-10-gap/index.md) (2026-09-14): The gap between Arena's #1 and #10 models fell from 148 points in Feb 2024 to 18. #10 now wins 47% of head-to-head votes against #1, up from 30%.
- [Chinese AI Models vs. US Models: How Close Is China?](https://modevc.com/charts/chinese-ai-models-vs-us-models/index.md) (2026-09-13): qwen3.8-max trails claude-fable-5.1-max by 27 points. Over the past year the gap has stayed between 25 and 46; it was 156 in Jan 2024.
- [Claude vs ChatGPT: Which Ranks Higher on the Leaderboard?](https://modevc.com/charts/claude-vs-chatgpt-leaderboard/index.md) (2026-09-12): On 11 Sept 2026, Claude's best model rates 40 points above OpenAI's and 16 above Gemini's. Against OpenAI's best it would win about 56% of blind votes.
- [Anthropic vs. OpenAI vs. Google: Who Holds the Top 20?](https://modevc.com/charts/anthropic-vs-openai-vs-google-arena-top-20/index.md) (2026-09-11): Anthropic holds 8 of the Arena top 20, Google 7 and OpenAI 0. In Apr 2025 OpenAI held 9 and Anthropic 0.
- [How Many AI Models Are There? Arena Rates 399](https://modevc.com/charts/how-many-ai-models-are-there/index.md) (2026-09-10): Arena rates 399 text models from 52 labs, up from 10 models in May 2023. Yet only 5 labs hold its top 20 seats, down from 15 in Dec 2023.
- [Best LLM for Coding: The Arena Coding Leaderboard](https://modevc.com/charts/best-llm-for-coding/index.md) (2026-09-09): claude-opus-4-6-high leads Arena coding at 1535. Anthropic has held #1 for 280 days, but Z.ai and Google sit within the interval, 19 points back.