Stripe finalized an agreement to buy AI model gateway OpenRouter for more than $7 billion, according to sources cited by Bloomberg. OpenRouter is an AI inference marketplace routing API requests across competing providers, processing 200 trillion tokens monthly for 10 million users. OpenRouter’s billing system relies on a prepaid credit balance held on its own books, with no blockchain required for micropayments. The acquisition would give Stripe, which already owns stablecoin issuer Bridge and wallet provider Privy, both the payment rails and the merchant. OpenRouter’s Series B valuation was reported at $1.3 billion, roughly one-fifth of the reported purchase price.
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