Stripe Takes OpenRouter

No one would ever call payment processing a glamorous business, although if anyone could make it interesting, it’s Stripe’s founders, the Collison brothers (they’re Irish, and one of them has a podcast set in a pub!). Stripe has been out of the limelight for a while, but that’s changed in recent weeks based on speculation that it has been involved simultaneously in a bid for PayPal and talks to buy OpenRouter. 

On Wednesday, Stripe confirmed one of those deals: the purchase of OpenRouter, which is like a retail store that sells access to hundreds of AI models, including the leading ones from Anthropic. Essentially, OpenRouter makes it possible for businesses and consumers to pick and choose different AI models through a single provider and billing system. Stripe may have another deal coming soon: A report last Friday in The Wall Street Journal suggested the PayPal acquisition was also getting closer. We’ll see how that shakes out over time. But the OpenRouter purchase is arguably more forward looking. (For more on Stripe’s business trajectory and its sudden interest in M&A, see this story.)