If it stalls at “Checking Licenses” i’m fairly confident it’s the Steinberg Licensing System, since Cubase doesn’t really know what a VST is up to when initializing them.
So - i’d start with downloading the latest update of the Steinberg Activation Manager | Steinberg and installing that. Perhaps also try and refresh your licenses by holding down shift when clicking the “Refresh” icon in the top right of the activation manager software ..
But - if it happened directly after an iLok / pace update, thats somewhat of a smoking gun. Anyway, doesn’t hurt to try the above either way ..