Soha Systems is launching a security service for cloud applications today, joining a pack of well funded startups hoping to capitalize on the massive shifts in the way companies structure and protect their digital infrastructure.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Soha is backed by a $9.7 million Series A, led by Andreessen Horowitz, that's also being announced today. The company's service is designed to protect enterprise applications running in the cloud by cutting them off from the public internet and acting as a rendezvous point for all incoming and outgoing traffic.

"We're like a Tor for enterprise applications," says Soha CEO and co-founder Haseeb Budhani, referring to the Tor network's approach to hidden services, which keep the location of servers and clients hidden from each other.

Soha's software sits with enterprise applications deployed on cloud services like Amazon Web Services, cutting them off from network access aside from a direct connection to Soha's own servers.

Users connect to Soha's cloud and authenticate, allowing them to exchange data with the application without revealing its location. Access is managed at the application level, allowing customers to let a user in for a specific service without exposing the rest of the internal network. Pricing, though undisclosed, is based on number of cloud deployments and number of end users.

Security is one of the chief concerns that has prevented some large enterprises from stampeding to the cloud, and Soha's approach to the problem is just one among many from startups and established vendors alike.

"Certainly network functions exist from companies that used to build hardware appliances," says Soha's vice president of marketing and products, Rob Quiros, who joined from Riverbed. "But taking them into the cloud is typically a build-it-yourself process that takes weeks or months."

Soha's service can be deployed in less than an hour, according to Quiros.

The company's paying customers now number in double digits and include Spirent, according to a customer video released late Monday.