Stripe to acquire AI gateway startup OpenRouter for over $7B – Bloomberg
Stripe has finalized a deal to acquire OpenRouter, according to a new report in Bloomberg. In July, WSJ reported talks at around $10bn. Today the discussions have led to a deal price of more than $7 billion.
OpenRouter helps customers to select different AI models to perform different tasks, depending on their specific needs and budget. Millions of developers use it to compare prices, switch providers, and route each request to the cheapest model that can do the job.
The company announced in May that it had raised a $113 million Series B, at a reported $1.3 billion valuation. (Investors include Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Menlo Ventures, and Alphabet’s Capital G.)
At the time, OpenRouter CEO Alex Atallah described the company as the equivalent of Stripe for AI, because it provides customers with a single access point for different systems and prevents lock-in. The startup also claimed to have 8 million global users and to provide access to more than 400 models.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Stripe and OpenRouter were in acquisition talks. Now, Bloomberg said those discussions have led to a deal price of more than $7 billion.
Simon Taylor, the Board Member and Founder of Global Digital Finance commented: „What makes this interesting is that Stripe already collects OpenRouter’s payments. It negotiated with the target’s revenue in its dashboard and knocked roughly $3bn off the leaked price, and still paid more than 5x the valuation OpenRouter raised at in May ($1.3bn). Three months ago.”
He continued: „Stripe built a $159bn company taking basis points on payment flows. OpenRouter takes a cut of token flows. What fascinates me is what they could do with something like this. If agents are increasingly going to transact with each other, what router would they use to buy all of those tools? Maybe an OpenRouter.„
