{"id":641936,"date":"2026-08-17T14:51:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T14:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/641936\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T14:51:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T14:51:26","slug":"stripe-agrees-more-than-7bn-deal-to-buy-ai-firm-openrouter-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/641936\/","title":{"rendered":"Stripe agrees more than $7bn deal to buy AI firm OpenRouter \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/john-collison\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/john-collison\">John <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/patrick-collison\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/patrick-collison\">Patrick Collison<\/a>-founded <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/stripe\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/stripe\">Stripe <\/a>has finalised an agreement to acquire OpenRouter, a start-up that helps companies switch between artificial intelligence models, for more than $7 billion (\u20ac6 billion), according to people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The deal, just months after OpenRouter raised money at a reported $1.3 billion valuation, underscores the demand from businesses to find the most cost-friendly AI solutions. It could also give Irish-founded Stripe, which processes payments, a stronger footing in the fast-growing artificial intelligence (AI) sector.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The final price for the acquisition could change. The discussions were described by people who spoke on condition of anonymity as the information is not public.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A spokesperson for Stripe said the firm doesn\u2019t comment on rumours or speculation. OpenRouter declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Founded in 2023, OpenRouter provides access to hundreds of AI models, with the goal of matching developers with the most efficient and affordable options for the job at hand. The New York-based company has attracted some of the biggest investors in Silicon Valley, including CapitalG \u2013 one of Google owner Alphabet\u2019s venture arms \u2013 as well as Andreessen Horowitz and Menlo Ventures. OpenRouter has raised more than $150 million in capital to date.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The start-up\u2019s rise coincides with greater scrutiny on AI costs. While firms like Anthropic PBC and OpenAI are still widely viewed as offering the most capable AI models, a long list of Chinese firms provide cheaper alternatives that are often viewed as good enough for many tasks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In May, OpenRouter said it serves 8 million developers who rely on it to access more than 400 different AI models. The start-up\u2019s main growth is coming from developers who experiment with different models when building agentic capabilities into their software, a process that requires a mix of infrastructure that can work across different providers and data sources.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">OpenRouter also offers services that help companies access backups in case the model they use fails and understand which options are most popular across the broader tech ecosystem.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Wall Street Journal previously reported Stripe was in talks to buy OpenRouter for about $10 billion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">OpenRouter chief executive Alex Atallah previously cofounded OpenSea, a nonfungible token marketplace, which raised more than $400 million in capital but saw usage crater. Atallah stepped down from OpenSea in July 2022, and less than a year later started OpenRouter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Earlier this year, Atallah described OpenRouter as the AI equivalent of Stripe. \u2013 Bloomberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John and Patrick Collison-founded Stripe has finalised an agreement to acquire OpenRouter, a start-up that helps companies switch&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,18,19,17,55638,44689,46138,82],"class_list":["post-641936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-collison","tag-patrick-collison","tag-stripe","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117111415372127435","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}