Ethiopian Startup Better Auth Acquired by Vercel After USD 5 M Seed Round

Better Auth, an open-source authentication platform founded in 2024 by Ethiopian entrepreneur Bereket Engida, has been acquired by US cloud platform Vercel for an undisclosed amount.

Founded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Better Auth enables developers to integrate authentication features such as sign-in, role management and password resets directly into applications while retaining control of user data. The acquisition comes about a year after the startup raised USD 5 M in seed funding from Peak XV Partners, Y Combinator, P1 Ventures, and Chapter One.

Better Auth has grown to 4.7 million weekly npm downloads and more than 850 open-source contributors. Engida and his team will join Vercel to develop AI-focused “agent identity” infrastructure while keeping Better Auth free and open source.