OpenRouter to be Acquired by Stripe to Help Businesses Optimize Token Routing and Usage

Stripe announced today that it has agreed to acquire OpenRouter, a leading AI model gateway and routing platform.

Orrick represented OpenRouter.

THE COMPANIES

Founded in 2023, OpenRouter provides a single, standards-compatible API that lets developers and enterprises tap into 400+ large-language-models (LLMs) from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral and more-without rewriting code or renegotiating contracts. OpenRouter's rankings and LLM leaderboards are available publicly and are a key source of industry data and trends.

Stripe is a technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet. Businesses of every size-from new startups to public companies-use its software to accept payments and manage their businesses online.

THE IMPACT

OpenRouter has built a platform that helps businesses dynamically evaluate each request, routing it to the optimal model based on task complexity, price, speed, and reliability. Customers include NVIDIA, Zoom, and Lovable. Together, Stripe and OpenRouter will be able to help companies manage both sides of profitability in the AI era: maximizing revenue and efficacy while minimizing costs.

"Tokens are the central currency for companies building with AI, and it's clear that the real-world economic potential will depend on making good use of scarce compute resources," said Patrick Collison, cofounder and CEO of Stripe. "Stripe is building the economic infrastructure for AI, and together with OpenRouter we'll help businesses maximize profitability by routing their requests intelligently and spending their tokens efficiently."

"Stripe has spent over a decade building trusted, neutral infrastructure for businesses, and OpenRouter was built on the same philosophy," said Alex Atallah, cofounder and CEO of OpenRouter. "We believe intelligence will be multi-model: no single model will be optimal for every task, and developers need a neutral layer to orchestrate and manage them all. Joining Stripe lets us accelerate that mission and bring the full AI ecosystem to every business."

THE TEAM

Josh Pollick and Alexandra Wood led the Orrick team that advised OpenRouter, which also included Daniel Garber, Ramin Tohidi, Alexandra Aquilina-Piscitello, Gregory Hume, Ben Hutten, Mike Yang, Shannon Yavorsky, SeoJung Park, Jake Routhier, Meg Hennessey and Danielle Mangogna.

LEARN MORE

• Stripe's news release
• Read More Orrick Client Results