It’s uncommon to see a solo founder constructing a extensively adopted developer infrastructure instrument. Much more so, if the founder occurs to be from Africa. Bereket Engida, a self-taught programmer from Ethiopia, is quietly constructing what some builders say is one of the best authentication instrument they’ve ever used.
Engida’s startup, Higher Auth, provides an open-source framework that guarantees to simplify how builders handle consumer authentication, and it’s caught the eye of some large title traders. It just lately raised about $5 million in seed funding from Peak XV (previously Sequoia India & Southeast Asia), Y Combinator, P1 Ventures, and Chapter One.
However essentially the most fascinating half right here isn’t who’s on the startup’s cap desk: Engida says he constructed all the product again dwelling in Ethiopia earlier than he set foot within the U.S.
Engida instructed TechCrunch that he began programming at 18 after a buddy declined to assist him construct an e-commerce search app, and he began engaged on the venture himself. He went on to land some distant software program jobs and finally constructed an online analytics platform that lets builders monitor consumer conduct on their web sites.
However all through his varied jobs, Engida says he stored seeing a problem popping up all over the place: authentication. Each app must handle how customers signal out and in, reset passwords, and generally directors have to deal with permissions and consumer roles. However he discovered current instruments have been both too restricted or inflexible — corporations like Auth0, Firebase and NextAuth provide managed companies, however they retailer consumer information externally, restrict customization, and are costly at scale.
“I bear in mind needing a company characteristic. It’s a quite common use case for many SaaS purposes, nevertheless it wasn’t out there from these suppliers,” Engida instructed TechCrunch. “So I needed to construct it from scratch. It took me about two weeks, and I bear in mind considering, ‘That is loopy; there needs to be a greater option to remedy this’.”
He then scrapped that venture and started engaged on a TypeScript-based authentication framework that may let builders entry consumer information through open-source libraries, assist frequent permissions use circumstances — like groups and roles — out of the field, and scale with plug-ins.
“The thought was that you possibly can add superior options in simply two or three traces of code,” Engida mentioned.
Why builders adore it
Over six months working largely from his bed room in Ethiopia, Engida constructed the primary model of the library that may go on to develop into Higher Auth. When he posted it to GitHub in September 2024, builders shortly noticed the potential.
Since then, Higher Auth has clocked 150,000+ weekly downloads, 15,000+ GitHub stars, and a neighborhood of over 6,000 Discord members, the startup claims.
Higher Auth’s pitch is straightforward: Let builders implement all the things from easy authentication flows to enterprise-grade programs straight on their databases and embed all of it on the back-end. Not like hosted companies, Higher Auth is an open-source library that builders can combine straight into their codebase, protecting all consumer information on premise, of their database. For corporations cautious of handing over important consumer data to 3rd events, this characteristic alone is a significant level.
The library has additionally discovered sudden traction amongst early-stage AI startups, which have to construct customized authentication flows that combine with proprietary APIs, handle tokens securely, and be capable to scale with out racking up excessive prices.
“We first heard concerning the product from quite a few startups we’ve labored with,” mentioned Arnav Sahu, companion at Peak XV and former principal at Y Combinator. “Their auth product has seen phenomenal adoption among the many subsequent era of AI startups.”
Higher Auth marks Peak XV’s first direct funding in an African founder.
Engida says Higher Auth, presently free to make use of, will concentrate on bettering its core options and launch a paid enterprise infrastructure that plugs into its open-source base. This can give builders the flexibleness to self-host or go for Higher Auth’s cloud add-ons as wanted.
He’s additionally fascinated about the right way to scale with out buying and selling away the product’s community-built really feel. On the roadmap, subsequently, is hiring a small group to assist keep the codebase, develop documentation, and assist enterprise customers. For now, although, Engida remains to be writing a lot of the code himself.
Higher Auth, which simply graduated from YC’s latest Spring batch, is the third Ethiopian startup to cross by the accelerator, following drone-based digital well being platform Avion, and meals supply platform BeU Supply.
“Constructing this feels vital not simply because folks love the product, however due to what it represents,” mentioned Engida. “There aren’t many Ethiopian founders constructing world merchandise. For a lot of, it feels nearly not possible. So seeing that traction provides hope for different folks to attempt to be extra bold.”
