In a rare story of global tech impact, Better Auth, a developer-first authentication startup founded by self-taught Ethiopian programmer Bereket Engida, has raised $5 million in a seed round led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA). Other investors include Y Combinator, Chapter One, P1 Ventures, and a host of angel backers. The funding will be used to accelerate the growth of Better Auth’s open-source authentication framework and its upcoming enterprise infrastructure offerings.
A Ground-Up Build from Ethiopia
What sets Better Auth apart is not just the product, but its origin story. Engida began developing the authentication framework from his bedroom in Ethiopia, inspired by recurring frustrations with existing tools like Auth0 and Firebase, which he found to be rigid, expensive, and limiting for developers needing customization and local data control. After six months of independent coding, he launched the first version of Better Auth on GitHub in September 2024, quickly attracting attention from the global developer community.
Rapid Adoption in the Dev Ecosystem
Since its launch, Better Auth has seen rapid traction with over 150,000 weekly downloads, 15,000+ GitHub stars, and a Discord community of more than 6,000 members. The library enables developers to manage everything from simple login flows to complex role-based systems directly in their codebase, offering both self-hosted and pluggable enterprise options. Its appeal lies in its transparency, flexibility, and local data retention—critical for startups operating in sensitive or high-scale environments, such as AI and SaaS platforms.
Peak XV’s First Direct Bet on an African Founder
The investment marks Peak XV Partners’ first direct funding of an African founder, underscoring the broader significance of Better Auth’s success. “We first heard about the product from numerous startups we’ve worked with,” said Arnav Sahu, partner at Peak XV. “It has seen phenomenal adoption among the next generation of AI startups, and its open-source-first model is clearly resonating.” Engida’s vision is equally ambitious: to make rolling your own authentication stack not just possible, but the default for developers around the world.
Building for the Long-Term Developer Stack
Alongside the core open-source framework, Better Auth plans to roll out complementary infrastructure tools. These include a unified user dashboard, bot and abuse protection, secure email/SMS auth, and fast, globally distributed session storage. Engida says the new funding will help grow a small engineering team, improve documentation, and better support enterprise customers—all while maintaining the community-driven feel that made the platform popular.
From Local Project to Global Platform
Better Auth, now a recent graduate of Y Combinator’s Spring 2025 batch, is only the third Ethiopian-founded startup to pass through the accelerator, following Avion and BeU Delivery. For Engida, the product is as much about developer empowerment as it is about proving what’s possible from unlikely places. “There aren’t many Ethiopian founders building global products,” he said. “But seeing how far Better Auth has come gives hope to others to try something ambitious.”
Better Auth’s journey from an independent side project in Addis Ababa to a VC-backed global authentication platform underscores the growing decentralization of developer innovation. By combining open-source ethos with enterprise-grade tooling, the company is positioning itself as a serious contender in the identity and access management space. With fresh capital and expanding adoption, Better Auth is set to redefine how developers think about authentication—on their own terms.