Stripe acquires OpenRouter for $7.5B in bet on agent economy

Stripe has acquired AI routing platform OpenRouter for a reported $7.5 billion, one of the largest fintech M&A deals of the year. The move signals a shift toward an economy where autonomous AI agents transact directly with each other.

• Deal valued at $7.5B, among the largest AI startup exits this year
• OpenRouter routes prompts between cheap and frontier AI models
• The transaction layer, not model intelligence, is the key asset
• Existing payment rails can't handle machine-speed micro-payments