Stripe Agrees to Acquire AI Gateway OpenRouter for Over $7 Billion

Stripe completed its acquisition of OpenRouter, an AI model-routing gateway, for more than $7 billion. Bloomberg confirmed the transaction on Aug 16, 2026. The deal values OpenRouter at roughly 5.4 times its $1.3 billion Series B valuation from May 2026.

OpenRouter provides a unified API that routes requests across more than 400 AI models and serves 8 million developers globally. The two companies first established a formal partnership in October 2024. The Wall Street Journal reported in July 2026 that the companies were in active discussions before Bloomberg confirmed the closing.

Nearly half of US enterprise AI tokens routed through OpenRouter originate from Chinese models, a detail that could attract regulatory scrutiny as the platform scales under Stripe's ownership.