Stripe generated $3.2B in free cash flow last year, up 52%, on revenue that climbed roughly a third to $6.8B, its best growth rate since 2021, according to The Information. Payment processing for AI companies drove much of it, since Stripe handles subscription and metered billing for labs including OpenAI and Anthropic and keeps a cut of sales that keep rising. Stripe has been buying and building the pieces around that business, paying a reported $1B for metered-billing startup Metronome and launching an AI Gateway in March that lets developers reach multiple models and meter what they use, so far with no markup. Stablecoins are the other bet, following the $1.1B Bridge deal, backing for the Tempo chain, and a founding seat in the Open USD consortium, which Stripe pitches as rails for agents buying model access and compute.
