Stripe Agrees to Acquire AI Model Gateway OpenRouter for $7.5 Billion

Stripe has agreed to acquire OpenRouter, a startup that helps developers access and route requests across artificial intelligence models, for approximately $7.5 billion, according to the New York Times. Bloomberg also confirmed the deal, though it reported the price as more than $7 billion without disclosing an exact figure. OpenRouter operates as a model gateway, enabling businesses to direct their AI spending across multiple models and providers and switch between them seamlessly.

The acquisition unites Stripe's payments infrastructure business with OpenRouter's AI routing layer, a combination that positions Stripe at the intersection of AI consumption and the financial flows that underpin it.