vArmour Networks, a pioneer in software-defined security for virtualized data centers, today announced it has raised $6 million in a Series A round of financing led by Highland Capital Partners. This brings the company's total funding to $8 million since its founding in January 2011 by two NetScreen veterans. The new financing will be used to expand the team and to launch vArmour's unique software-defined security solution into the marketplace. As part of the investment, Corey Mulloy, general partner at Highland Capital Partners, joins the board of directors.

Virtualization is being used extensively to make IT more cost effective, flexible and responsive. Already mainstream for computing, virtualization is recently being adopted in storage and networking with the emergence of software-defined storage (SDS) and software-defined networking (SDN) technologies. vArmour will be the first company to take virtualization into the realm of network security, pioneering a new kind of solution called software-defined security (SDSec). SDSec will address the scalability, flexibility and cost challenges that plague current network security technologies, with a focus on eliminating the bottlenecks that have prevented data centers from fully realizing the benefits of compute and network virtualization.

"While computing, networking and storage systems have become more flexible and dynamic with the advent of virtualization, security systems have lagged behind," said Corey Mulloy, general partner at Highland Capital Partners. "vArmour's innovative SDSec solution addresses a large opportunity in the network security market. They have the right team with the right DNA and a compelling technology. vArmour will be an important player in the data center." 

"We're extremely excited to join the Highland Capital Partners portfolio," said Roger Lian, co-founder and CEO of vArmour. "Corey and the Highland team have a clear understanding of how virtualization places new demands and opens new opportunities across the IT spectrum. With the benefit of their deep enterprise experience, and our new resources, we're in a great position to further build our team and launch our SDSec solutions into the market."

vArmour's SDSec solutions are currently in evaluation with large enterprises and service providers in the US and internationally. To join the vArmour team, visit www.varmour.com/careers.html.