Stripe is reportedly negotiating to acquire OpenRouter, a startup that provides developers with the ability to access and switch between various AI models. The potential deal could value OpenRouter at around $10 billion, sources familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal.

Founded in 2023, OpenRouter hosts hundreds of large language models on its platform, allowing customers to compare options from providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and open-weight alternatives. Its revenue model involves charging a fee on top of the underlying costs of these AI models, drawing a parallel to Stripe’s payment processing structure.

The startup was last valued at $1.3 billion earlier this year, reflecting a sharp increase in its market worth. Investors include Menlo Ventures and CapitalG, the venture capital arm of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Despite ongoing talks, the acquisition is not yet confirmed and may face competition from other tech giants who had also expressed interest.

Expanding Beyond Payments

Stripe, valued at $159 billion, has been diversifying beyond its traditional payment services. Earlier in 2026, the company announced efforts to build infrastructure tailored to AI and stablecoin payments. A spokesperson commented that with tokens becoming more interchangeable with money, enabling real-time streaming payments is a key element of Stripe’s economic infrastructure for AI applications.

OpenRouter currently relies on Stripe to handle payments from its customers, indicating an existing business relationship between the two firms. CEO Alex Atallah has previously likened OpenRouter’s role in AI model transactions to Stripe’s central position in payment processing.

The rising demand for AI model routing stems from companies’ desire to use multiple AI providers to optimize costs and reduce dependency on any single vendor. This has sparked the emergence of competing routing tools, including offerings from Cursor and Databricks, as well as Ramp, which focuses on expense management.

Stripe is also separately exploring the acquisition of PayPal, a company valued at approximately $53 billion. Such moves highlight Stripe’s ambition to broaden its foothold in both payment and AI-related infrastructure.

World Network Raises $52.5M to Combat AI Deepfakes and Bot Fraud demonstrates further interest in the AI infrastructure space from other players, emphasizing the market’s competitiveness.