Andreessen Horowitz · Agentic AI · Anthropic · Snowflake · AI Agent · OpenAI · The Register
Payments giant Stripe is about to drop over $7 billion to become a gateway to AI token sales
Compiled by KHAO Editorial — aggregated from 1 source. See llms.txt for citation guidance.
◌ Single Source
AI gateways look promising as companies struggle with model orchestration.
Key facts
- They raised at a $1.3B post money valuation in May, and even if revenue has grown significantly since then and acquisitions often have an additional multiple, 5x in 3 months is nuts
- As of December 2025, OpenRouter reported serving more than 5 million developers to route traffic to more than 300 models from more than 70 providers
- OpenAI in October 2025 was serving about 8.6 trillion tokens per day, according to Andreessen Horowitz, and OpenRouter was serving more than 1 trillion tokens per day
- In July, Anthropic collected 65 percent of gateway spending on 30 percent of token volume, at 4.4 times the average price of every other lab's tokens," Vercel said
Summary
Payments biz Stripe has reportedly finalized an agreement to acquire OpenRouter for at least $7 billion, signaling a shift in focus for the AI industry. OpenRouter provides a way for customers to integrate multiple AI models into their workflow and infrastructure and is, by Ramp's measure, the most popular of the gateway companies that have sprung up to simplify model integration. Stripe declined to comment, citing a policy of not addressing rumors or speculation. Akhil Verghese, founder and CEO of Krazimo, a developer of AI software for businesses, told The Register in an email that he found the acquisition fascinating because OpenRouter is to AI models what Stripe has been to financial infrastructure. "A key factor for me is the value," he said.