Vercel acquires Better Auth, hires Bereket Engida and his core team
Better Auth is an open-source authentication library that helps developers host and manage authentication rather than rely on third-party services.
By Israel Usulor
Vercel, the company that helps developers deploy websites and web applications on the internet, has acquired Better Auth.
Better Auth is an open-source TypeScript authentication library that enables developers to host and manage authentication themselves instead of relying on third-party hosted services.
Founded by Bereket Engida, Better Auth currently has 4.7M+ weekly npm downloads and more than 850 contributors, according to Vercel, which made the acquisition announcement in a blog post.
“Founder Bereket Engida and the core team are joining Vercel to continue their work on Better Auth and agent identity,” said Guillermo Rauch, CEO and founder of Vercel, in the blog post.
In the era of AI agents, web developers are no longer just battling to build apps and websites that can authenticate humans; they are now thinking of how to authenticate autonomous agents acting on behalf of humans.
Bereket Engida joins Vercel
In a separate blog post, Bereket, the Ethiopian self-taught developer who started Better Auth in 2024, said joining Vercel will enable his team to continue their work to improve the auth framework.
“Together, we’ll also be able to invest more deeply in where auth is heading: a future where agents act on users’ behalf and need secure, scoped, and revocable access, while bringing these primitives across Vercel’s products,” Bereket said.
Neither Better Auth nor Vercel disclosed how much the deal was worth.
Reacting to the development, Nigerian investor and founder of Tekedia Capital, Ndubuisi Ekekwe, disclosed that Better Auth was a Tekedia portfolio company.
“Good People, it is with great excitement that I announce the acquisition of one of our portfolio companies, Better Auth, by the industry-leading decacorn, Vercel. Founded by a self-taught tech prodigy from Ethiopia, Better Auth has ascended to become a preeminent force in open-source authentication,” Ekweke said in a LinkedIn post Thursday.
In 2025, Better Auth raised $5 million in seed funding from Y Combinator, Chapter One, P1 Ventures, and Peaky XV, TechCrunch reports.