Even before Stripe entered talks to buy startup OpenRouter for $10 billion, several tech companies were exploring or developing router technology, which helps customers use the most cost-effective AI models. And Stripe’s talks with OpenRouter, which my colleagues last week reported have entered the advanced stage, have set off a frenzy of interest in router startups —including from big software companies like Snowflake that have yet to get into the fray. That’s been the experience of Thibault Jaigu, CEO and co-founder of Requesty, a five-person UK startup whose software routes developers using AI to various models. “The race to optimize is crazy,” said Jaigu, who said at least 25 companies had approached Requesty in the past couple weeks wanting to talk, including about possible investments, acquisition or other partnerships. By optimize, Jaigu is referring to developers’ demand for tech that helps cut costs by switching to older models from Anthropic, Google and OpenAI for some tasks, or to cheaper open-source alternatives such as China’s Kimi. Need for this technology has risen as AI agents consume more tokens, the units of text or other data that are the basis for pricing many AI services, and as open-source technology has advanced.
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