Stripe finalized a deal to acquire OpenRouter for more than $7 billion on August 16. This deal is merging the world’s largest online payments infrastructure with an AI gateway that routes developer workloads across more than 400 models. These include OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, DeepSeek, and dozens of other providers. The acquisition represents Stripe’s largest known bet on artificial intelligence and values OpenRouter at more than five times the $1. To put that timeline in perspective, most startups spend years trying to double their valuation.