STRIPE ACQUIRES OPENROUTER IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE EXPANSION

Stripe agreed to acquire OpenRouter, an artificial intelligence startup that provides developers access to multiple AI models. According to reporting citing a person familiar with the matter, the acquisition price is approximately £7.5 billion, with £1.5 billion allocated to OpenRouter's founders. Stripe declined to comment on the transaction terms. The payments company said the acquisition will allow it to "maximise profitability by routing their requests intelligently and spending their tokens efficiently", according to Patrick Collison, Stripe's chief executive and co-founder.

OpenRouter has become popular among developers seeking to use artificial intelligence models that are not proprietary and available without charge, particularly those developed by Chinese laboratories including DeepSeek and Z.ai. These open-weight models typically cost less than proprietary systems offered by United States companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic. OpenRouter raised £113 million at a valuation of approximately £1.3 billion less than three months before the acquisition announcement. Stripe noted in a blog post that managing artificial intelligence costs relative to performance has become difficult because of the rapid rate at which models are released and repriced.

Stripe has become one of the world's most valuable startups, with a valuation of approximately £160 billion as of earlier in the year, primarily owing to its online payment technology. The acquisition represents the company's expansion beyond payment processing into the artificial intelligence market. The transaction remains subject to standard closing conditions, though no timeline for completion was specified.