Stripe buys OpenRouter for more than $7B
Stripe is buying OpenRouter. OpenRouter gives developers one way to use many AI models: one API, one credit balance, one bill. Stripe announced the agreement on 19 August 2026 without disclosing a price; reports put it at more than $7B — about 50 times OpenRouter’s roughly $140M of annualised revenue. A year ago that revenue was about $5M.
OpenRouter’s valuation at each funding round and at the sale
Post-money valuation at each round, then the agreed sale. OpenRouter was founded in 2023; annualised revenue grew from about $5M in July 2025 to about $140M in July 2026. Hover a point for the round details.
Source: Dealroom.co funding rounds and valuations · Sacra and The Information revenue estimates · Bloomberg reported price. Stripe confirmed the acquisition on 19 August 2026 without disclosing terms; all revenue figures are annualised run-rate estimates.
Dealroom estimates the founders still owned more than half of the company at the sale.
Who owns OpenRouter at the sale
Dealroom’s estimate of ownership and proceeds at a $7.0B price. Founders and staff together would receive about $4.5B before tax and deal terms.
Source: Dealroom.co funding rounds; round-by-round dilution model with an assumed 10% staff option pool. An estimate, not the legal share register. Proceeds are gross, before tax and any deal terms.
Split by investor, the earliest money multiplied most. Every investor is in the money at this price.
Money in and estimated money out, by investor
Each bubble is an estimated ticket, placed at its round; the green bubble is Dealroom’s estimate of that investor’s gross proceeds at a $7.0B sale. On this model, a $700K angel cheque in the seed returns about $88M.
Method: investor sets are Dealroom investor records; tickets are Dealroom’s estimate of how each round was split between them, and the round totals ($10.7M seed, $40M Series A, $113.5M Series B) match the funding rounds. a16z and Menlo Ventures co-led the seed and Series A; CapitalG led Series B. The yearly figure is the money-weighted annualised return (IRR) across the investor’s tickets; Series-B-only positions, held about three months, are not annualised. Ownership per ticket = ticket ÷ post-money, diluted by later rounds; proceeds = stake × $7.0B. Bubble area ∝ dollars on one shared scale for money in and money out; tickets under $3M draw at a minimum visible size. All investors together: $164.2M in → an estimated $2.46B out (15×), 35.1% of the company at the sale.
Source: Dealroom.co funding rounds, valuations and investor records; Dealroom analysis. Return is the gross multiple of money returned, before fees and carry, and is not a realised fund return. Estimates, not a legal cap table.
Set against other AI and software acquisitions of 2025 and 2026, the OpenRouter multiple is near the top of the range.
Revenue multiples on recent AI and software acquisitions
Price divided by revenue at announcement, deals announced 2025–2026. Stripe’s roughly 50 times sits above Nvidia–Groq (40×) and Google–Wiz (32×); the era’s largest deal, xAI’s $60B Cursor purchase, closed at 15 times. The bubble view plots the multiple against each company’s last reported revenue growth.
Source: Dealroom.co Multiples & Valuations tracker; reported deal terms. Multiple = enterprise value ÷ revenue at announcement; revenue is disclosed, estimated or annualised run-rate, not audited. OpenRouter = $7.0B ÷ ~$140M annualised. Growth = last reported year-on-year revenue growth before the deal (company statements, press reporting, Dealroom estimates); n/d where none was reported. In the bubble view, bubble area ∝ price. Excluded: three AI deals above 100× revenue (SoftBank–Ampere, AECOM–Consigli, Anthropic–Stainless) and Meta’s 49% Scale AI stake, which was not a full acquisition.