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SaaS platform Mintoak closes Rs 71 Cr secondary investment from Z3Partners

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Mintoak, a SaaS platform serving banks and merchant acquirers, has raised Rs 71 crore in a secondary funding round.

The round saw early-growth investor Z3Partners acquire a minority stake from some of Mintoak’s initial institutional investors.

“This fundraiser is a good validation of the value we’ve delivered to some of our early backers,” said Raman Khanduja, CEO and Co-founder of Mintoak. “We’re excited to welcome Z3Partners to our journey and look forward to leveraging their expertise as we scale to new heights.”

Mintoak is a merchant SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platform that helps banks and merchant acquirers improve their engagement with small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It provides payment processing services and tools for cross-selling, loyalty programmes, and gamified customer engagement campaigns.

The New Delhi-based platform counts major banks such as HDFC Bank, State Bank of India, Axis Bank, and YES Bank among its clients. The platform has also expanded internationally, working with banks like Absa and Network International. Operating in six countries, Mintoak handles more than $50 billion in annual gross merchandise value (GMV) and processes over $3 billion in transactions every year.

“Mintoak’s remarkable product-led growth and innovation are redefining how Banks and SMEs collaborate, demonstrating trust and transaction scale. Their leadership team has world-class capability in working with Banks and Merchants globally with their prior experience at leading financial institutions,” said Gautam Patel, Founder and Managing Partner at Z3Partners. “We’re thrilled to support their global ambition and transformative efforts in the merchant-acquirer ecosystem.”

In February 2023, Mintoak raised $20 million in Series A funding round led by PayPal Ventures with participation from British International Investment. In the same funding round, HDFC Bank increased its stake in the startup to 7.75% from 5.20%, while another existing investor, Pravega Ventures, also participated along with a few other institutional investors.





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Innovaccer bags $275M in Series F funding to scale healthcare intelligence cloud

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Healthcare AI company Innovaccer on Thursday raised $275 million in a Series F funding round.

CapTable reported this exclusively in April last year.

The fundraise, which was a combination of primary and secondary offering, included participation from B Capital Group, Banner Health, Danaher Ventures LLC, Generation Investment Management, Kaiser Permanente, and M12.

According to the company, the newly raised funds will be used to expand collaborations with its existing customer base, introduce new artificial intelligence and cloud capabilities as well as scaling its developed ecosystem on the platform.

Innovaccer is also planning to add multiple copilots and agents to its offering including utilisation management, clinical decision support, and care management, among others.

“This investment propels us into the next chapter of transforming healthcare with AI. By harnessing the full potential of artificial intelligence, we are empowering our customers to redefine care delivery, unlock unprecedented insights, and achieve outcomes that truly matter. Together, we are building the foundation for a smarter, more connected healthcare future,” said Sandeep Gupta, Co-founder and COO of Innovaccer.

Founded in 2014, the company helps healthcare organisations by providing software solutions suite to help modernise patient experiences and reduce the administrative burden on providers.

The Tiger Global-backed company previously raised $150 million in a Series E funding round in December 2021. According to the CapTable report, the startup was previously valued at over $3.2 billion.

The Silicon Valley-based startup has raised a total of $675 million to date.

Over the past year, the company also acquired two companies: Cured and Pharmacy Quality Solutions.

The funding also comes amidst a flush of investments being made to integrate artificial intelligence in the healthcare sector. In 2024, according to a report by Silicon Valley Bank, the sector was projected to see $11.1 billion in VC capital deployed across the full year.





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The Worst Computer Virus of All Time: A Digital Plague Still Spreading

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Imagine opening an email on a seemingly ordinary day, only to unknowingly unleash a digital monster that would wreak havoc across the globe. This is the story of MyDoom, the worst computer virus in history, responsible for over $55 billion in damages over the past 20 years. Despite extensive efforts to trace its origins, the identity and motives of its creator remain a chilling mystery. Let’s explore how this cyber nightmare continues to haunt the digital realm, infecting machines at an astonishing rate of 1.2 billion emails annually in 2025.

The Birth of MyDoom: A Day That Shook the Internet

It all began on January 26, 2004, when people worldwide started receiving peculiar emails. The subject lines varied, but the message inside often read: “I’m just doing my job, nothing personal, sorry.” Attached to these emails was a file, which, when opened, unleashed a worm into the victim’s computer. This wasn’t just another malware; MyDoom was a highly sophisticated piece of code designed to exploit vulnerabilities with ruthless efficiency.

Within hours, infected computers began sending copies of the worm to every email address in their contact lists. The sheer scale of its impact was unprecedented: within its first year, MyDoom was responsible for 25% of all emails sent globally.

How MyDoom Operates: The Anatomy of a Digital Menace

mydoom

MyDoom’s core functionality was deceptively simple yet devastatingly effective:

  1. Rapid Self-Replication: Once activated, the worm scanned the infected computer for email addresses, sending itself to as many recipients as possible.
  2. Botnet Formation: Infected machines were added to a vast botnet—a network of compromised computers under the control of the virus creator.
  3. DDoS Attacks: MyDoom leveraged this botnet to launch Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on major websites and servers, disrupting operations for businesses and governments alike.

Economic Fallout: A $55 Billion Digital Disaster

The financial toll of MyDoom is staggering. Direct damages, such as lost productivity and system downtime, combined with indirect costs like reputational harm, have amounted to over $55 billion. This makes MyDoom the most expensive malware outbreak in history.

To put this into perspective, the damages caused by MyDoom exceed the GDP of several small nations. Companies scrambled to enhance cybersecurity measures, while governments issued warnings to prevent further spread—yet the worm persisted.

The Unsolved Mystery: Who Created MyDoom?

Despite a $250,000 bounty offered by Microsoft for information leading to the arrest of its creator, the identity of MyDoom’s developer remains unknown. Speculations range from rogue hackers seeking fame to organised cybercriminal groups. Some even theorise it was a state-sponsored attack.

The cryptic apology in the email message (“I’m just doing my job”) adds an eerie layer to this mystery. Was it a disgruntled employee or a cyber vigilante? The truth, much like the worm itself, remains elusive.

MyDoom in 2025: A Virus That Refuses to Die

Two decades later, MyDoom is still active, sending approximately 34 million emails daily. Advances in cybersecurity have made it harder for the worm to spread, yet its persistence highlights the challenges of eradicating legacy malware. MyDoom has become the digital equivalent of a cockroach—annoying, resilient, and seemingly indestructible.

A Digital Plague for the Ages

MyDoom’s story is a cautionary tale of how one piece of malicious code can upend the digital world. Its continued activity is a reminder that the internet, for all its advancements, remains vulnerable. While cybersecurity experts work tirelessly to outsmart the next big threat, MyDoom lurks in the shadows, a relic of the early 2000s that refuses to fade away.

As we advance into an era of AI-driven technologies and quantum computing, let’s not forget the lessons MyDoom has taught us: in the digital battlefield, complacency is not an option. So, the next time you receive an email that seems “off,” think twice—it might just be MyDoom knocking on your inbox.





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GrayQuest raises Rs 80 Cr in Series B funding round

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Fintech startup GrayQuest  has raised Rs 80 crore ($9.3 million) in its latest Series B equity funding round.

The fintech company, which focuses on building digital financial solutions for India’s education ecosystem, has bagged the funding from IIFL Fintech Fund, Claypond Capital (Family Office of Dr. Ranjan Pai), and existing investor Pravega Ventures.

The company plans to utilise the capital to further enhance its technology platform and significantly scale its distribution to educational institutions across the country.

“We have had quite a journey from the initial days of pitching a radically new way of collecting fees at institutions to our solutions slowly becoming a must-have for educational institutions across the country. We are thankful for the trust and conviction shown by some of India’s most respected investors to partner with us in this journey as we continue to focus our efforts on building innovative solutions that will make a significant positive impact to the lives of our customers across the education ecosystem,” said Rishab Mehta, Founder and CEO, GrayQuest.

Founded by Rishab Mehta in 2017, the Mumbai-based startup offers educational institutions a unified payments platform to enable them to digitize and boost their fee collection. Its platform enables institutions to offer their students and parents multiple payment options, including a monthly payment option to pay their annual education fees without bearing any extra costs.

“India’s education ecosystem is one of the world’s largest, with over $120 billion of education fees paid annually. However, there has been little innovation in recent decades, especially compared to similar ecosystems that have embraced digital payments. We were impressed with the category leadership and the impact GrayQuest solutions were having on some of India’s leading institutions across the country and are thrilled to partner with them on this journey,” added Mehekka Oberoi, Fund Manager, IIFL Fintech Fund.

 

 

 





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