Stripe eyes OpenRouter at ~$10B — 70x the startup's revenue
What's the deal? Stripe is in talks to buy OpenRouter, a three-year-old AI startup, for close to $10 billion, according to a person with knowledge of OpenRouter's financials. That would value the company at roughly 70 times its recent annualized revenue.
What does OpenRouter do? It helps app developers access more than 400 proprietary and open source AI models through a single application programming interface (API). The service routes some tasks to cheaper or more focused models — including open source ones from Chinese firms — instead of defaulting to the priciest options from providers like AnthropicDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and OpenAI.
The numbers: OpenRouter recently generated about $140 million in annualized revenue, or roughly $12 million a month — nearly triple its April pace. Its costs to serve the product ran about $40 million annualized, or 28.5% of revenue, leaving $100 million in gross profit. With fewer than 100 employees, it may be profitable excluding stock compensation.
Why so steep? The proposed multiple towers over recent AI deals. SpaceX is paying $60 billion in stock for coding app Cursor, which was generating $2.7 billion in annualized revenue — about 22 times forward revenue. OpenRouter is far smaller but has stronger economics, with a roughly 70% gross profit margin near that of high-performing public software firms.
Why now? Businesses are increasingly mixing multiple AI models rather than relying on the newest, most expensive ones. OpenRouter is facilitating usage at 250 trillion tokens per month, up from 50 trillion in February, investor Deedy Das said on X.
What's the endgame? OpenRouter, founded in 2023 and last valued at $1.3 billion in a CapitalG-led Series B, lets developers access, compare and switch between hundreds of AI models through a single interface. A deal could deepen Stripe's hold on AI-related payments. It already processes payments for OpenRouter, Anthropic, OpenAI, and many smaller developers. Its free cash flow surged 52% to $3.2 billion in 2025, giving it more firepower for acquisitions.
The signal: Stripe was valued at $159 billion in a February tender offer, so a nearly $10 billion stock-based deal could represent about 6% of its shares. The price underscores how much a payments giant will pay to position itself at the centre of AI's spending boom.
Read more: The Information - The Wall Street Journal
