Good day. Fallout from plummeting unicorn values has spread through Silicon Valley, and investors in SoftBank Group's Vision Fund have privately criticized various aspects of the fund's strategy.

Meanwhile, federal prosecutors have hit former executives of once-highflying startup Outcome Health with criminal charges for allegedly falsely reporting data to obtain financing. 

Plus, Blackstone Life Sciences and Swiss drugmaker Ferring Pharmaceuticals are set to pump more than $570 million into a company aiming to use gene therapy to treat cancer. And Volition Capital has gone from backing a major pet supplies business to a Florida-based art supplies startup.

And now on to the news...

Fallout. Once Silicon Valley’s highest-flying darlings, companies from WeWork to Uber Technologies Inc. have collectively lost about $100 billion in value this year, prompting some startup executives to talk up profitability over growth as venture-capital investors grow more cautious about spending, the Journal's Heather Somerville reports.

• The startup industry remains awash in cash, and with interest rates staying historically low, any further steep decline in the private markets is unlikely, investors say. Still, the magnitude of the value destruction has cast a level of uncertainty over the venture-capital industry not seen in years.
   
• Financing deals are taking longer, say entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and startup advisers. Deals for consumer-technology companies that just six months ago would have closed in a week or two are now taking a month or longer, say venture capitalists.
   
• Startups that were planning on raising $80 million to $100 million are now being told by investors they should expect closer to $20 million to $30 million, said Adam J. Epstein, who advises startup CEOs and their boards.

Grumbling. SoftBank Group Corp.’s biggest investors are putting pressure on the tech conglomerate over its governance and for a string of bad investments in its $100 billion investment fund, the Journal's Liz Hoffman and Phred Dvorak report. Investors including Capital Group, hedge fund Tiger Global Management LLC and Southeastern Asset Management Inc. have privately criticized the company over losses in the Vision Fund in recent weeks, people familiar with the matter said.

Criminal charges. Federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against former executives of once-highflying startup Outcome Health, alleging they falsely reported data to defraud the company’s clients as well as investors—including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Alphabet Inc.—to obtain almost $1 billion in debt and equity financing, The Wall Streeet Journal reports.

Art supplies startup. Volition Capital, an early investor in pet supplies seller Chewy Inc., believes it has found another diamond-in-the-rough in South Florida, WSJ Pro's Yuliya Chernova reports exclusively. This time, the Boston firm invested $24 million in a profitable art-supplies maker, Arteza. The Series A deal is Arteza’s first institutional outside investment.

Gene therapy. Blackstone Life Sciences and Swiss drugmaker Ferring Pharmaceuticals said they would pump more than $570 million into a new Ferring subsidiary company seeking to treat cancer through gene therapy, WSJ Pro's Brian Gormley reports. Blackstone Life Sciences plans to invest $400 million and Ferring up to $170 million in FerGene, a new company developing a treatment for bladder cancer.

Publicly traded cloud security provider Palo Alto Networks Inc. agreed to acquire machine identity-based microsegmentation company Aporeto Inc. for about $150 million in cash. In January, the San Jose, Calif.-based startup raised $20 million in Series B funding from Comcast Ventures, Wing VC and Norwest Venture Partners.

Next Coast Ventures raised $130 million for its second fund, far surpassing the $85 million the firm collected for its inaugural fund in 2017. With the new fund, the Austin, Texas-based firm will continue to invest in early-stage startups located outside the East and West Coast technology hubs. In July, Next Coast Ventures II LP made its first investment, leading TrustRadius’ $12.5 million Series C round.

Virginia Beach, Va.-based New Ventures Funds closed its third fund with $90 million to continue making early- to mid-stage investments in startups focused on therapeutics, digital medicine and pharmaceutical royalties. New Ventures III LLC has made 12 investments to date.

Early-stage investor Weekend Fund secured $10 million in commitments for its second fund, which will invest $75,000 to $200,000 per company in startups focused on sectors including remote working, audio and voice technology and creator tools.

Bitcoin drops below $7,000 as China euphoria fades. Regulators reaffirm tough stance on companies involved in cryptocurrency trading and fundraising.

Older IT workers left out despite tech talent shortage. The U.S. tech sector skews younger than the workforce as a whole, with the largest gap among employees 35 to 44.

Uber loses license to operate in London. Regulator cites vulnerabilities in Uber’s app and passenger safety for its decision.

Turo, the ‘Airbnb for Cars’, angers rental car companies. Turo lets individuals rent their personal vehicles.

EBay to sell StubHub to Swiss ticket reseller for roughly $4 billion. The deal will reunite Viagogo CEO Eric Baker with StubHub, a company he co-founded.

EU plans $3.9 billion fund for startups in “Valley of Death.” (BNN Bloomberg)

SoftBank to go ahead with WeWork stock tender offer this week. (Reuters)

U.S. takes aim at Chinese drones. (Axios)

Volocopter unveiled a new flying taxi station in Singapore, but it was gone within a week. (Verge)

A Bill Gates-backed solar startup uses the sun to make cement. (Quartz)

Tim Berners-Lee unveils global plan to save the web. (Guardian)

Scribd Inc., a San Francisco-based ebook, audiobook and magazine subscription service, closed a $58 million funding round led by Spectrum Equity.

Frame.io Inc., a New York-based video review and collaboration platform, raised $50 million in Series C funding. Insight Partners led the round, which included participation from Accel, FirstMark, SignalFire and Shasta Ventures. Itai Tsiddon, co-founder of Lightricks, will represent Insight on Frame.io’s board.

Deep 6 AI, a Pasadena, Calif.-based clinical trial recruitment startup, collected $17 million in Series A funding. Point72 Ventures led the round, with participation from investors including GSR Ventures. Daniel Gwak, a partner at Point72, will join the company’s board.

Cymulate Ltd., an Israel-based cyber-attack simulation startup, secured $15 million in Series B funding. Vertex Growth Fund led the round, with participation from the investment arm of Vertex Ventures Israel, Dell Technologies Capital and Susquehanna Growth Equity.

Openly Inc., a Boston-based home insurance startup, was seeded with a $7.7 million investment led by Gradient Ventures.

Entera, a residential real-estate investment platform with offices in San Francisco, New York and London, picked up a $7.5 million round of financing. Bullpen Capital and Craft Ventures led the investment, and were joined by ValueStream Ventures and others.

Vibenomics Inc., a Fishers, Ind.-based startup whose technology enables businesses to control their background music to enhance sales, added $5 million in seed financing. New investors Elevate Ventures and The Ricker Family provided the round, along with existing backer High Alpha.

Rad AI, a Berkeley, Calif.-based radiology startup, launched with a $4 million seed round.  Gradient Ventures led the investment, with contributions from UP2398, Precursor Ventures, GMO Venture Partners, Array Ventures, Hike Ventures, Fifty Years VC and others.

Dayna Grayson has left New Enterprise Associates to start her own venture-capital firm called Construct Capital, according to a person familiar with the matter. Ms. Grayson joined NEA in 2012 and was most recently a partner in the firm’s Washington, D.C., and New York offices. Axios earlier reported the news.

We cover venture capital and the global startup ecosystem. WSJ Pro Venture Capital is a premium service of The Wall Street Journal. Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The Team: Tomio Geron, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley, Heather Mack, Katie Roof and Marc Vartabedian.

Follow us on Twitter: @wsjvc, @tomiogeron, @ychernova, @BrianPGormley, @1heathermack, @katie_roof, @marcvarta.