Ethiopian Startup Better Auth Raises $5M to Democratize Secure Authentication











Beyond the Valley: Better Auth Raises $5M to Democratize Authentication for the World

June 25, 2025

Just three months after Addis Insight reported on their remarkable journey from Ethiopia to Silicon Valley, the story of Better Auth has taken yet another extraordinary turn.

The startup—founded by Bereket Engida and Kinfe Michael Tariku—has officially closed a $5 million seed round, backed by some of the biggest names in global tech investing: Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA), Y Combinator, Chapter One, P1 Ventures, and several prominent angel investors. This new funding is a resounding endorsement of the team’s ambitious mission: to make secure, developer-owned authentication accessible to everyone, everywhere.

A $5M Bet on Open Source Africa

For a startup that started in Addis Ababa with little more than a framework and a dream, this milestone is more than just capital—it’s validation.

“This funding fuels the next phase of Better Auth,” reads the company’s announcement. But beneath the modest phrasing lies a powerful vision: to shift authentication infrastructure from being a centralized, expensive, and often opaque process into a transparent, modular, and developer-first ecosystem.

From day one, Bereket and Kinfe believed that developers should be able to own their authentication systems—not be locked into expensive platforms. Their open-source authentication tool, purpose-built for TypeScript, makes it dramatically easier to build secure login, verification, and session management workflows without reinventing the wheel.

Now, with financial backing from some of the most respected VCs in the world, Better Auth is expanding both its team and infrastructure to serve a growing developer base.

From Framework to Full Stack Security

As the company grows, so too does its ambition. While their original open-source project tackled the framework, the new funding will support infrastructure-level features that many developers struggle to implement independently. The roadmap includes:

A unified dashboard for managing users and analytics

Enterprise-grade protection against bots, abuse, and fraud

Robust email and SMS authentication services

Fast, globally distributed session storage systems

And more tools focused on developer experience and data privacy

This evolution signals that Better Auth is no longer just a project—it’s fast becoming a comprehensive platform.

Still Ethiopian at Heart

Despite the international scale of their vision, the founders remain deeply rooted in their origins. For Bereket, who previously created Gebeya Search and Loglib, building from Ethiopia has always been a source of strength, not limitation.

“We wanted to prove that you can build global infrastructure out of Africa,” Bereket said in a previous interview with Addis Insight. And now, with a globally distributed team and international users, they are living proof that local innovation can scale globally.

The startup’s success also brings new visibility to Ethiopia’s burgeoning tech ecosystem—where talent often outpaces infrastructure. Better Auth’s rise shows what’s possible when resourcefulness meets opportunity.

Y Combinator Was Just the Beginning

Better Auth’s acceptance into Y Combinator’s Spring 2025 Cohort was already a Cinderella story. The founders battled visa delays, bureaucratic obstacles, and geographic bias—yet still made it to Demo Day, where they pitched in front of top Silicon Valley investors.

The experience unlocked key relationships and technical mentorship. But now, the $5M round demonstrates that investors don’t just believe in their pitch—they believe in their long-term potential.

“It’s still early days,” the founders note. “There’s so much more to build.”

Redefining What Success Looks Like

In an ecosystem where African startups often chase user acquisition or mobile payments, Better Auth stands apart. It is an infrastructure company, targeting a global developer market, and doing so with transparency, openness, and technical depth.

At a time when cybersecurity threats are rising, and when developers worldwide are being asked to “do more with less,” Better Auth offers an essential solution. Not flashy. Not hype-driven. Just a smart, secure foundation.

What Comes Next

With this new funding, Better Auth is doubling down on hiring, product development, and community building. Developers can now join the waitlist for early access to the next-generation infrastructure. The goal: push the boundaries of what’s possible, not just for Silicon Valley—but for anyone, anywhere, trying to build software with trust at its core.

As Bereket and Kinfe put it: “We’re obsessed with making high-quality authentication the obvious choice—for everyone.”

And with $5 million in fresh capital, global investors behind them, and a mission rooted in freedom, trust, and developer empowerment, Better Auth might just become Ethiopia’s first unicorn.

Follow the journey at better-auth.com or join the waitlist here.