According to reports from Bloomberg Law, Stripe Inc. has finalized an agreement to acquire OpenRouter Inc., a startup that helps companies switch between artificial intelligence models, for more than $7 billion. The deal represents the culmination of advanced negotiations that began months ago, with the final price confirmed at over $7 billion after initial reports suggested a $10 billion valuation. The acquisition underscores the demand from businesses to find the most cost-friendly AI solutions, with the deal just months after OpenRouter raised money at a reported $1.3 billion valuation. The final transaction price may still have room for adjustment, according to sources familiar with the matter. As reported by TechCrunch, the reported agreement remains unconfirmed by Stripe or OpenRouter despite multiple reports that negotiations have concluded, with a Stripe spokesperson declining to confirm the deal, stating the company "does not comment on rumors or speculation."
As reported by Bloomberg, the acquisition could give Stripe, a payments processing firm, a stronger footing in the fast-growing artificial intelligence sector. A spokesperson for Stripe said the firm doesn't comment on rumors or speculation, while OpenRouter declined to comment. The startup's rise coincides with greater scrutiny on AI costs, with firms like Anthropic PBC and OpenAI still widely viewed as offering the most capable AI models, while a long list of Chinese firms provide cheaper alternatives. Stripe's interest extends beyond pure financial considerations, as the company already processes payments for OpenRouter, providing clearer visibility into the platform's actual revenue trajectory. The payment giant's cross-industry acquisition of AI routing infrastructure drives capital concentration towards model-neutral layers, with buyers valuing cost optimization and multi-model switching capabilities. The acquisition follows Stripe's expansion into AI agent payments through Coinbase's x402 protocol, which allows AI agents to pay for APIs, data and computing resources with USDC.
According to Bloomberg, founded in 2023, OpenRouter provides access to over 500 AI models from more than 80 providers through a single API, eliminating the need for developers to maintain separate connections to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others. The New York-based company processes trillions of tokens monthly across millions of developers and has attracted some of the biggest investors in Silicon Valley, including CapitalG — one of Alphabet Inc.'s venture arms — as well as Andreessen Horowitz and Menlo Ventures. OpenRouter has raised more than $150 million in capital to date, with the latest funding coming from a $113 million Series B round announced in May. The platform's current pricing page lists more than 500 models from over 80 providers, with features including automatic routing and the ability for customers to select preferred vendors. OpenRouter's model-neutral approach allows developers to select models based on factors including price, capabilities, and availability instead of committing an application to one AI company. The company's CEO Alex Atallah previously described the startup as the AI equivalent of Stripe, because it provides customers with a single access point for different systems and prevents lock-in.
As reported by Bloomberg, in May, OpenRouter said it serves 8 million developers who rely on it to access more than 400 different AI models. The startup's main growth is coming from developers who experiment with different models when building agentic capabilities into their software, a process that requires a mix of infrastructure that can work across different providers and data sources. OpenRouter also offers services that help companies access backups in case the model they use fails and understand which options are most popular across the broader tech ecosystem. The company's CEO Alex Atallah previously described the startup as the AI equivalent of Stripe, comparing its single integration for multiple AI providers with Stripe's role in simplifying access to payment infrastructure. The current negotiations value OpenRouter at approximately $10 billion, representing a seven-fold increase in valuation from its May funding round. Usage increased at a similar pace, with OpenRouter reporting in May that weekly processing volume had reached 25 trillion tokens, equivalent to about 100 trillion tokens per month, compared with 5 trillion tokens per week six months earlier, describing this as fivefold growth in processing volume.
According to Bloomberg, OpenRouter Chief Executive Officer Alex Atallah previously co-founded OpenSea, a nonfungible token marketplace, which raised more than $400 million in capital but saw usage crater. Atallah stepped down from OpenSea in July 2022, and less than a year later started OpenRouter. Earlier this year, Atallah described OpenRouter as the AI equivalent of Stripe. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Stripe was in talks to buy OpenRouter for about $10 billion, with discussions now said to be exclusive and ongoing. Stripe completed the acquisition at a price more than five times the previous round's valuation, motivated by securing the billing and routing entry for AI usage. Researchers have also used OpenRouter's traffic to study AI adoption, with a study released this year by researchers from OpenRouter and Andreessen Horowitz analyzing more than 100 trillion tokens of real-world interactions across different models, tasks and locations, finding substantial use of open-weight models as well as increased agent-based inference.
