Anaconda Acquires Kilo Code, Open-Source Coding Agent With 3 Million Developers

Anaconda, a company best known for distributing Python for data science, announced on July 15, 2026 that it has acquired Kilo Code, an open-source coding agent used by more than 3 million developers worldwide. It is Anaconda's second major developer-tools acquisition this year, and a signal that the company wants to control the entire AI-assisted software development pipeline, from the first line of code to production deployment.

Kilo Code is a so-called agentic coding platform: an AI system that autonomously reviews code repositories, plans new features, modifies files, hunts down the causes of bugs, and carries out multi-step development tasks. It runs inside popular environments such as Visual Studio Code and JetBrains, as well as via a command-line tool and in the cloud. A defining feature of Kilo is that it isn't tied to a single language-model provider, the agent automatically picks the model for a given task based on its capabilities, cost, or the availability of free options.

Startup's rapid growth

Kilo Code was founded in March 2025 by Scott Breitenother, previously the founder of the data consulting firm Brooklyn Data, and Sid Sijbrandij, co-founder and former CEO of GitLab, who stepped down from that role in December 2024 following a cancer diagnosis. Within sixteen months, Kilo grew from zero to more than 3 million developers, largely through word of mouth in the open-source community. In December 2025, the startup raised 8 million dollars in seed funding from Cota Capital, with participation from Breakers, General Catalyst and Quiet Capital.

In November 2025, GitLab paid Kilo Code one thousand dollars for a right of first refusal, valid until August 24, 2026, giving the company ten business days to match any acquisition offer Kilo might accept. The deal with Anaconda closed before that deadline, meaning GitLab could in theory have exercised its right, though neither side has disclosed whether or how it was resolved.

Why Anaconda bought a developer tool

Anaconda has long sold companies a managed distribution of Python and data-science tools, positioning itself as a safe, controlled alternative to chaotic open source. In April 2026, the company acquired Outerbounds, maker of the Metaflow framework that originated at Netflix, building a production orchestration layer for AI workloads. The Kilo Code acquisition completes that chain with the layer where developers actually write code with the help of AI agents.

Anaconda CEO David DeSanto frames the decision around a problem he calls token-maxxing, the uncontrolled spending by companies on language-model queries with no visibility into who is using them or for what. Developers often rely on personal accounts and unmonitored API keys for AI services, which makes it hard for companies to track spending and enforce security policies.

There hasn't been a real answer to token-maxxing until now. Organizations are spending huge sums with very little visibility into what the money is actually going toward - David DeSanto, CEO of Anaconda

Kilo Code co-founder and CEO Scott Breitenother frames the matter from the perspective of a tool that now serves large organizations, not just individual developers looking for the fastest path to working code.

Developers aren't going to stop using AI. The question is whether companies take control of that experience from start to finish - Scott Breitenother, CEO and co-founder of Kilo Code

What changes for companies

According to Anaconda, early tests show that intelligently routing queries to the appropriate models, instead of defaulting to the most expensive options, cuts token usage by 30 to 50 percent. For large organizations using multiple models and providers at once, that translates into real savings, but also lower risk of downtime in the event of an outage or a price hike from one of the partners, such as OpenAI or Anthropic.

Anaconda's eventual goal is for code written by a developer with the help of the Kilo agent to reach production without switching platforms, with the same security policies applying at every stage. Integration between Anaconda's orchestration and governance tools and Kilo is set to deepen over the next twelve months; current Kilo users won't see any changes to the product, pricing, or support for now.

Market context

The deal fits into a broader consolidation trend in the market for coding-agent tools, alongside similar moves by companies including Cursor, JetBrains, and major cloud platforms, which are building their own cost- and security-management layers for AI aimed at enterprise developers. For Polish companies using AI coding tools, it shows that even popular, open-source projects can quickly end up under the wing of larger players offering enterprise contracts and support guarantees, something worth factoring in when choosing tools for the long term.