Stripe Letter to Investors: The AI Inflection Point Has Arrived, Privatization Has Become an Advantage

Dynamic Beating AI Newsflash: In their latest investor letter, the three leaders of Stripe referred to January 1 of this year as the "dawn of a new era." This does not mean that AI has surpassed humans, but rather that Stripe believes several long-term trends have reached a significant inflection point, such as the dramatic increase in the speed of new company formations.

Stripe has also experienced this wave of growth. In the first half of this year, the company saw a 41% year-over-year increase in net revenue and a 43% increase in free cash flow. 88% of the companies in the Forbes AI 50 list use Stripe, including OpenAI and Anthropic; the remaining 12% are mostly not yet commercialized. The revenue contribution from AI and crypto companies has more than doubled compared to a year ago.

Stripe now views "capital" and "intelligence" as the two most important digital flows for the future of enterprises. While in the past Stripe helped companies manage money, they now aim to assist companies in managing AI usage, including assessing the value of a task, selecting the appropriate model, and determining who should foot the bill. OpenRouter perfectly complements this area, with its weekly compounded Token usage growing by approximately 9% this year. Stripe has announced the acquisition of OpenRouter, stating that it is their largest acquisition to date, with the transaction expected to be completed in the coming weeks. Axios reported that the deal's value exceeds $8 billion, primarily paid in stock.

Stripe has explicitly stated that maintaining its status as a private company is now an advantage. AI has made the future more unpredictable, and the company does not want to sacrifice long-term decision-making for short-term market pressures. Despite continuous expansion and acquisitions in recent years, Stripe's total share count remains lower than it was three years ago. Starting from the Series D funding round ten years ago, the private price per share has seen an annualized growth of approximately 31%.