Payment giant Stripe has finalized a deal worth over $7 billion to acquire the AI large model aggregation platform OpenRouter.

According to informed sources, Stripe Inc. has reached a final agreement to acquire AI startup OpenRouter Inc. for over $7 billion. The latter focuses on helping businesses switch flexibly between different AI models. This deal comes just a few months after OpenRouter completed a funding round at an estimated valuation of about $1.3 billion, highlighting the strong demand in the corporate market for cost-effective AI solutions. At the same time, this acquisition will further strengthen payment processing giant Stripe's competitive edge in the rapidly expanding AI field. However, the final transaction price may still fluctuate. Due to the confidential nature of the information, sources requested anonymity to discuss the transaction details. A Stripe spokesperson stated that the company does not comment on market rumors or speculation; OpenRouter declined to respond. Founded in 2023, OpenRouter provides access to hundreds of AI models, aiming to match developers with the most efficient and cost-effective options to meet specific task requirements. The New York-based startup has attracted top investment firms from Silicon Valley, including CapitalG, the venture capital arm of Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL.US), as well as Andreessen Horowitz and Menlo Ventures. To date, OpenRouter has raised over $150 million. The company's rapid rise coincides with a growing market sensitivity to AI costs. Despite the models from providers like Anthropic PBC and OpenAI being widely regarded as the most advanced, many low-cost alternatives offered by Chinese suppliers are considered sufficiently competent in various scenarios. In May of this year, OpenRouter disclosed that its services cover 8 million developers, who have accessed over 400 different AI models through the platform. The main growth driver for the company comes from developers experimenting with different models in software development to build agent capabilitiesthis process requires a blend of infrastructure that can work collaboratively across multiple service providers and data sources. Additionally, OpenRouter offers failover model-switching services to safeguard against the failure of primary models, and helps clients understand the most favored model options across the entire technological ecosystem. It was previously reported that Stripe intended to acquire OpenRouter for about $10 billion. OpenRouter CEO Alex Atallah co-founded the NFT trading platform OpenSea, which raised over $400 million but saw a significant decline in user engagement later on. Atallah left OpenSea in July 2022 and founded OpenRouter less than a year later. Earlier this year, Atallah likened OpenRouter to "the Stripe of the AI field."