OpenRouter Raises $120M at a $1.3B Valuation (inc.com)

I was looking at OpenRouter earlier today, after becoming frustrated with VertexAI. Similar in that they offer a menu of many models, different in that Google is running them and OpenRouter is a proxy.

If OpenRouter is not much more than a middle man, what business model are they raising money on? Surveillance?

Super convenient for switching out models, and they also play a vetting function. Cool to see a useful service raising!