Peak XV Partners, Y Combinator, P1 Ventures in Ethiopian tech deal
Better Auth, an Ethiopian authentication platform, has raised a $5 million seed round.
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Better Auth, an Ethiopian authentication platform, has raised a $5 million seed round led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA), with participation from Y Combinator, Chapter One, P1 Ventures, among others.
Self-taught programmer Bereket Engida’s startup, Better Auth, is an open-source authentication framework that helps developers add everything from simple login flows to complex role and team-based permissions – without handing off user data to third parties.
The idea came from Bereket's experience working on various software jobs, where he kept running into the same problem: authentication tools like Auth0 and Firebase were either too rigid, too expensive, or didn’t let you store data in your own database. So he built something better – a TypeScript-based library that’s plug-and-play, fully self-hosted, and scalable for startups and enterprises alike.
It’s found early traction, especially among AI startups that need to customise authentication, handle tokens securely, and avoid scaling costs.
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