Introducing cto.new: The First Completely Free AI Code Agent

Engine Labs today introduced cto.new, the world’s first completely free AI code agent. The company also announced $5.7 million in pre-seed and seed funding from Kindred Ventures, PROfounders Capital, Wonder Ventures, and Entrepreneurs First. Cto.new, the company’s free AI coding agent, combines the world’s most popular LLMs, including OpenAI’s GPT-5 and Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.5, with intelligence across a wide range of common workflow tools, and is already used by more than 6,000 developers at companies including Adobe, Docker, Twilio and PwC. It currently ranks ahead of Claude Code and Codex on Terminal Bench, a leading AI code agents benchmark. Watch here: https://youtu.be/97dXmTPG1l8?si=lpd4BC2JY0FeDUWv

Developer’s Problems: Broken Workflows and Spiraling Costs

Engineering teams today face fragmented and inefficient coding workflows, juggling multiple AI models, tools, and platforms. AI integrations are typically shallow, with little support for real-time collaboration, context-awareness, or workflow continuity. Most tools are built for individual developers rather than teams, forcing engineers to cobble together workflows that don’t scale. All this, while costs mount with little oversight. Many engineers are priced out.

Cto.new’s Solution: The Best AI Models with Intelligence Across Every Developer Tool, Now Accessible to All

Cto.new integrates directly into popular platforms like Linear, Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Slack and more ensuring a smooth workflow for the whole team across the full software development lifecycle. With its unique intelligence, cto.new recently outperformed established leaders like OpenAI, Anthropic and Stanford in Terminal Bench and SWE-bench. Cto.new makes this accessible to all developers, completely free.

“Our mission is to empower engineering teams by integrating powerful AI agents into their everyday workflow, eliminating friction, and making the entire software development lifecycle dramatically more affordable,” said Simon Spurrier, Founder and CEO of Engine Labs. “With a small team, we’re already outperforming the world’s biggest companies in benchmarks and we plan to continue building with that same intensity into the future.”

“This is the right product at the right time,” said Steve Jang, Founder and Managing Partner at Kindred Ventures. “As AI floods into developer tools, the winners will be the ones who go deep on integration, speed, and team workflows. This team has nailed all three.”

The funding comes across two rounds, including a $2.2M pre-seed from Kindred Ventures, Wonder Ventures, and Entrepreneurs First and a $3.5M seed round from Kindred Ventures and PROfounders.

Companies can learn more and get started free at https://www.cto.new.

About cto.new

Cto.new is the world’s first completely free AI code agent for software teams. It plans work and ships code in all the tools you already use: Jira, Linear, Slack, and GitHub. Cto.new runs on all leading LLMs, bolstered by proven benchmarks and trusted by thousands of users. Backed by Kindred Ventures, PROfounders Capital, Wonder Ventures, Entrepreneurs First, and Script. Get free access at https://www.cto.new.

Contact Information

Michael Ludden

Head of Marketing

Engine Labs

contact@enginelabs.ai