Stocks are falling, titans keep fighting, and TPG's IPO plan attracts critics

Major U.S. stock indexes fell today as investors worried that the Federal Reserve might respond more aggressively to rising inflation than previously anticipated. The minutes of the Fed's December policy meeting, released this afternoon, indicated that officials might lift short-term interest rates as soon as March. The WSJ has more here.

Things seem grim now. But America's COVID situation could get better in six to eight weeks.

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Fractal Analytics, a 22-year-old, Mumbai- and New York-based big data analytics outfit, has raised $360 million from TPG. TechCrunch has more here. TechCrunch has more here.

Korro Bio, a 3.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based RNA editing company, just raised $116 million in Series B funding. Eventide Asset Management led the round, joined by Fidelity, Invus, Point72, Verition Fund Management, and Monashee Investment Management, among many others. FierceBiotech has more here.

Miro, an 11-year-old, Tk-based maker of visual collaboration software, has raised $400 million in Series C funding at a post-money valuation of -- what that what?! -- $17.5 billion. The company has raised $476 million altogether, it says, including from backers in its newest round: Iconiq Growth, Accel, Atlassian, Dragoneer, GIC, Salesforce Ventures, TCV and individual investors. Among these are Airtable co-founders Howie Liu and Andrew Ofstad, Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman and DocuSign CEO Dan Springer. TechCrunch has more here.

Petal, a 5.5-year-old, New York-based startup that offers two Visa credit card products aimed at underserved consumers with little to no credit history, has raised $140 million in Series D funding led by Tarsadia Investments, with participation from CUNA Mutual, Encore Bank and earlier backer Valar Ventures, among numerous other firms. TechCrunch has more here.

SalioGen Therapeutics, a 1.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based gene coding startup, has raised $115 million in Series B funding. GordonMD Global Investments and EPIQ Capital Group co-led the round. Other investors, including Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, D1 Capital Partners, SymBiosis, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Foundation Fighting Blindness, also participated. More here.

Sygnum, a Switzerland- and Singapore-based outfit that runs a digital-asset bank and trading platform, raised $90 million in a funding round that valued it at $800 million led by Sun Hung Kai & Co., with added participation from Animoca Brands and Canada’s Meta Investments. Bloomberg has more here.

Udaan, a 5.5-year-old, Bangalore, India-based e-commerce platform that helps merchants secure inventory and working capital, has raised $200 million in funding through a convertible note, including from Tor Investment and Arena Investors, reports TechCrunch. It also secured $50 million as straight-up debt, says the outlet. More here.

AltoIRA, a seven-year-old, Nashville, Tn.-based platform that invites people to use their retirement accounts to invest in alternative assets, has raised $40 million in Series B funding led by Advance Venture Partners. Earlier investors Unusual Ventures, Acrew Capital, Alpha Edison, Foundation Capital, Gaingels and Coinbase Ventures also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.

Doosan Robotics, a nearly seven-year-old, Seoul, South Korea-based outfit at work on collaborative robots, whose use runs the gamut from manufacturing to a coffee-making barista, has raised $33.7 million in funding led Praxis Capital Partners and Korea Investment Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Formant, a 4.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that has built an intelligent platform for robotic fleets, has raised $18 million in funding from Hillsven, Pelion, Goodyear Ventures, Thursday Ventures, Ericsson, Picus Capital, and Holman Strategic Ventures. The outfit has now raised $23 million altogether. VentureBeat has more here.

mPharma, an eight-year-old, Accra, Ghana-based drug benefits service, has raised $30 million in Series D funding, including from JAM Fund, the venture firm of Tinder cofounder Justin Mateen; Unbound, a growth investment firm by Shravin Mittal, a managing director with Bharti Global; and Lux Capital (this is the firm’s first investment in Africa). The outfit also secured $5 million in debt funding from Citibank. TechCrunch has more here.

Xage, a 5.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup working to keep critical infrastructure like oil and gas pipelines and electrical grids up and running securely, has raised $30 million in Series B funding. Piva led the round, joined by Momenta, Valor Equity Partners, OurCrowd, and earlier investors March Capital, City Light Capital, Saints Capital and Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures. The company has now raised $54 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

CryptoSlam, a 3.5-year-old, Overland Park, Ks.-based data and analytics platform focused on the NFT industry, just raised $9 million in seed funding led by Animoca Brands, with participation from Mark Cuban, Sound Ventures, and Polygon. Decrypt has more here.

Meez, a six-year-old, New York-based startup that's developing what it describes as professional recipe software, has raised $6.5 million in funding led by Struck Capital, which was joined by Craft Ventures, Relish Works, Aurify Brands, Food Tech Angels and Branded Strategic Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Protai, a year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup that's building an AI-based platform in order to map the course of a disease on the protein level (to improve the way new drugs are discovered), has raised $8 million in seed funding co-led by Grove Ventures and Pitango HealthTech. TechCrunch has more here.

Strados Labs, a five-year-old, Philadelphia, Pa.-based company that says its e-stethoscope product can wirelessly and remotely monitor patient lung sounds to detect worsening respiratory diseases, has raised $4.5 million in pre-series A funding from investors including SOSV, cultivate(MD), Wavemaker360 Health, Blu Venture Investors, and Broad Street Angels. More here.

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Smash Ventures, a late-stage venture capital firm founded by former Disney executives, has closed its debut fund with $500 million, suggests a new SEC filing. As Dot.LA notes, Hollywood-based Smash has announced only a handful of tech investments since launching in 2018. The firm, led by co-founders and managing partners Eric Garland and Evan Richter, has backed Fortnite-creator Epic Games, sports betting giant DraftKings, the grooming brand Manscaped, and search engine DuckDuckGo. (We introduced readers to the firm last year.)

SOCAR, a south Korean car-sharing startup, has filed for an IPO. The details – the number of shares to be offered in the IPO and the price range – have not yet been determined. The company has raised a total of about $275 million since its inception in 2011, it says. TechCrunch has more here.

Private equity giant TPG is taking advantage of booming markets to go public next week, but critics say it is inflating the returns of its funds — and burying the bad news — in its S-1 registration statement. According to a new letter to the SEC written by the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and a professor at Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School, TPG’s lofty returns are based on a faulty internal rate of return methodology. Institutional Investor has the story here.

Quentin Tarantino is moving forward with an auction for NFTs of his screenplay for 1994’s Oscar-winning “Pulp Fiction" spite of a lawsuit filed by entertainment company Miramax, which produced the film.

Shawn Xu, a Wharton MBA who has logged time at Square, Bessemer Venture Partners, Dorm Room Fund and, most recently, Floodgate, is now a founding partner at the venture arm and accelerator of On Deck, a platform that has long connected tech workers to potential cofounders and early employees and is now investing a $150 million fund, too. More here.

Nike today filed a lawsuit accusing Lululemon of patent infringement over its Mirror fitness device -- Lululemon acquired Mirror last year -- and related mobile applications. Nike's assertion is that in 1983, it invented and filed a patent application on a device for determining a runner’s speed, distance traversed, elapsed time and calories expended. (This seems . . . desperate?) CNBC has more here

As Beijing takes control, Chinese companies lose jobs and hope.

A pair of scions from Singapore’s wealthiest families are teaming up to create a private NFT-based social networking app, becoming the latest among the well-heeled to jump aboard an intensifying crypto craze.

A drone carrying a defibrillator has reportedly saved its first heart attack patient, in Sweden.

Jack Dorsey's grudge match with Marc Andreessen (an early investor in Twitter!) shows no sign of abating.

The line that Antonio Brown crossed this time.

Winging it over the pyramids of Giza.

Interior design trends to noodle.

To-go drinks are coming back to New York.

Ken Miles's Shelby Mustang GT350R prototype.