The company doesn’t want to say exactly what it does beyond a bit of marketing mumbo jumbo that essentially boils down to taking advantage of software-defined networking to offer a better security product. It does say the “solutions” it makes are being tested at several enterprise customers and service providers.

The rise of software-defined networking will likely be a boon to security-conscious companies, because they will be able to secure different network traffic based on a much more granular level without expending much effort. In software-defined networks, all movement of packets across the network are defined as “flows” and security personnel can assign different rules for every single flow if they want to.

The opportunity is big, but it’s unclear what vArmour will be doing, although it is a partner in Big Switch’s ecosystem, which means it probably will support Open Flow. In a document over at Big Switch, vArmour says it plans to offer a flow-based security product that can work across a virtualized environment.

Since this is a space that’s set to heat up, I’ll borrow from industry expert Christopher Hoff who laid out the types of security people need to think about with software defined networks last week. From his blog:

When I think about how to categorize the intersection of “SDN” and “Security,” I think about it the same way I have with virtualization and Cloud:

Securing SDN (Securing the SDN components)
SDN Security Services (How do I take security and use SDN to deliver security as a service)
Security via SDN (What NEW security capabilities can be derived from SDN)

There are numerous opportunities with each of these categories to really make a difference to security in the coming years.

The notion that many of our network and security capabilities are becoming programmatic means we *really* need to focus on securing SDN solutions, especially given the potential for abuse given the separation of the various channels.

Go read the whole thing and when vArmour finally gets around to telling us what it does, you’ll be well-prepared to understand where it fits in.

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1: Keep it short and sweet.

Verbosity is not your friend. Set the hook in the first 5 minutes or you’ll probably lose them, said Joe Caruso, an angel investor speaking at a Friday morning Unconference panel in Boston. Don’t bring 50 Powerpoint slides. Bring 15 if you have to. The goal of this first meeting is not getting money, it’s getting the second meeting, said Jo Tango, of Kepha Partners, channeling Highland Capital’s Paul Maeder.

2: Be conversational.

Most VCs want a conversation more than an outright pitch. Be interactive and don’t get defensive responding to probing questions. Pushback is critical to this process. Investors want to see how you handle obnoxious questions. Skip the marketing speak, and get to why your idea is important.

3: Don’t name drop.

This is a pet peeve for Highland Capital Partners’ Sean Dalton. It’s like they’re saying “I know everyone but you. Now let’s talk about you.” VCs really just want to get to the point and see your value, not the value of your contact network.

4: Do your homework.

What has this VC firm done before? What are they interested in? Why does your vision jibe with theirs? Don’t pitch every VC in the zip code. Get the best introduction you can — if it’s a lawyer or a banker, the VC knows that they’re introducing you to 50 other funds. Targeted pitches beat scattershot pitches any day. Some funds are one and done — invest once and like the quick exit. Others are in it for the long haul, participate in every round — and take a bigger chunk of equity. Does that suit your plan?

Make sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date and spiffy. They will study it before agreeing to meet.

5. Be honest.

When a potential investor asks why you left a job after a year, tell him. You don’t have to go into gory details but you can say “Hey, we didn’t really get along but I learned a lot from that experience. “If it seems that your idea isn’t impressing the investors, ask what it is about it that fails to excite. You never know if one of the partners in the room is the cousin of the CEO you parted ways with.

Be prepared to talk about your biggest success — and your part in it — and your biggest failure — and your part in that.

6: Embrace ambiguity

If you’re not equipped to deal with uncertainty and the very real prospect of failure (2/3rds of venture funded companies don’t return capital), don’t go this route.

Feature art courtesy of Shutterstock user Keith Bell

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Photobox, which prints digital photos and books, announced that it was purchasing Moonpig — which sells personalized greetings cards online — in a deal funded through a mixture of cash, shares and borrowed money. The Financial Times has plenty of detail about the transaction.

The two are known to have been circling each other for a while, but Photobox CEO Stan Laurent suggested that the deal was about trying to become the biggest player globally in what he called the “personal publishing market”. However the timing, just a few days after greeting cards retailer Cardfactory bought online gift business Getting Personal, makes it look like a wave of consolidation is starting to hit the wider online printing business in the U.K.

It’s a large sector with several significant players and no runaway winners right now. Precisely what it means for local stalwarts like Moo.com, or international companies with big British presence like Dutch company Vistaprint, remains to be seen. Similarly, it’s not clear whether this will have an impact on American rivals like Snapfish, Zazzle and Shutterfly, though there’s certainly the possibility that it could help ignite similar consolidation on the other side of the Atlantic over the next year or two.

Photobox, which is backed by Highland Capital Partners (Ask Jeeves, eToys) and Index Ventures (Skype, MySQL), says it will be raising another round of funding off the back of the deal. It has previously suggested it might consider flotation.

In the long run, though, this deal may actually have more cultural impact than it does to the market. After all, the purchase is a testament to perseverance: the story of two dotcom veterans who many thought wouldn’t stay the course. Moonpig was started in 1999, as the dotcom bubble was hitting full speed. Even the name itself seemed to be meaningless, plucked from the Web 1.0 handbook (it was actually based on founder Nick Jenkins’ nickname).

Photobox came a year later, hoping to build a business that would help keep the humble physical photograph alive. Both made it through the crash and the desolate years afterwards and recovered well, building substantial and valuable businesses over time.

In fact, in a way they’re also indicative of a certain style of European startup: one that just keeps on going and going. Moonpig founder Jenkins was forced to take six rounds of investment to push the company to profitability — but at each point he put his own money in as well to prove to investors that he was serious. The business didn’t turn a profit for five years, but when it did things grew pretty quickly. And the result of Jenkins’ dedication, says the Financial Times report, is that he retains 35 percent of the company even after all this time, and gets a substantial reward of almost $70 million for his efforts.

Photograph used under Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user lollyknit

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Digg has raised

The company will use the funds to expand internationally and move into newer offices; it will also hire more people as part of its expansion. Digg had raised $11.3 million in two prior rounds from investors SVB Capital, Greylock and the Omidyar Network, along with a few angels.

The rumor I heard is that Digg founder Kevin Rose got to a sell a nice chunk of his shares in the company, a trend that has become quite fashionable among the Web 2.0 set. Several founders have taken money off the table as their companies wait for a bigger payday. I am sure, however, that he is going to stick around. CEO Jay Adelson declined to comment on the news.

If that was the case, it was a good move for Kevin. Digg, however, is in a bit of a pickle. As this chart from Quantcast makes clear, Digg’s traffic is showing signs of plateauing. There has been a slight uptick in their traffic lately, but what’s troubling is that a mere 1 percent of its users (who can be labeled addicts) are generating 32 percent of the visits, according to Quantcast. They have 224.1 million page views a month, of which 156 million come from the U.S.

This round of financing has been in the works for a while. I was contacted about it by many of my sources, some of whom hinted that the San Francisco-based social news startups was raising a “gigantic” amount of money, but such rumors conflicted with other chatter I was hearing about the company being acquired by larger players. There was talk of Google buying Digg, but last-minute issues might have prevented that deal. Michael Arrington has reported that, “Google was in the due diligence stage of the deal, where they peer deep into Digg’s technology and financial statements,” but walked away due to several reasons.

One way or another, it looks like Adelson, Digg’s current CEO, is in it for the long haul with this company — and so are the investors.

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Benjamin, 49, was one of the early entrants to the world of Internet stocks, and as a reporter for Forbes.com, I got to know him well, chatting with him often to get his thoughts on where the Internet madness was headed. He worked for Robertson Stephens then.

A thoughtful, measured and yet straight-talking Benjamin was one of the few analysts who provided perspective in the mad days of the Internet bubble. He became a VC for Highland Capital Partners and opened the San Francisco office for the Boston-based VC fund. Benjamin was a believer in B2B and Internet (software) infrastructure. He joined Levensohn Partners in 2002, and I met with him a few times when I was working for Business 2.0 and we stayed in touch. Rest in peace, my friend. You will always live in my thoughts.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy or the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation, The Trauma Center, in Keith’s memory. If you would like to add remembrances for the benefit of the family, please link to http://www.forthebenjaminfamily.blogspot.com. Remember to sign your name so the family knows who it is from. (From Levensohn Venture Partners web site.)

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