Model routing
One connection that sends each request to the best or cheapest of many models, with billing and backup built in.
Who is making money
The companies earning or raising real money in this part of AI. Suppliers are marked: they sell to the builders rather than to end users.
marketplace of hundreds of models behind one API
Sacra estimate of about $50M annualised in early 2026. Company does not publish revenue
Open profileRuns a global network and an AI Gateway that routes and caches AI calls for apps, and bought Replicate in Dec 2025.
Open profileHosts web apps and runs AI Gateway, one endpoint for many model providers with no token markup.
About $340M run-rate (Apr 2026, reported)
Open profileAI gateway with monitoring and guardrails
No figure found
Open profileOpen-source logging and gateway for AI calls. Now part of Mintlify and in maintenance mode.
Last disclosed raise of $1.5M (Apr 2023, per CB Insights). Acquisition price not disclosed
Open profileopen-source router with a paid enterprise tier
Seed round co-led by Y Combinator (reported)
Open profileModel router that picks the best model for each request to balance answer quality against cost.
$9M seed led by NEA (Nov 2023). No 2026 funding found
Open profileModel router that predicts which AI model will give the best answer for a prompt at the lowest cost.
About $2.3M raised in 2024, plus an undisclosed 2025 round from strategic investors including IBM and SAP.iO
Open profileWhere the money flows
Developers pay the router a margin of about 5% on top of model costs. The router pays the model providers.
led the $113M Series B through its CapitalG fund
dealroom.coinvested in the Series B through NVentures
dealroom.co
The openings
Gaps still open in this area, from ones a small business could take to ones only giants can play.
- Small business Set up routing with budgets, logging and fallbacks for small and mid-size firms
- Small business A router that keeps data in NZ or Australia for compliance
- Startup money An enterprise control panel for all AI use
Routers add little once the labs and clouds offer their own multi-model access.
Sources: sacra.com, kucoin.com
The map updates three times a week.
241 companies across 25 areas, 62 money flows and 89 openings so far. New research lands every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
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