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Leading Travel Search Company SideStep, Inc. Raises $15 Million

Posted on: Wednesday, 7 February 2007, 09:00 CST

SideStep, Inc., the Internet's leading travel search company, announced today that it has raised $15 million in a Series C funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP). Round participants also include Trident Capital, Leader Ventures and Saints Capital. SideStep will use the funding to aggressively scale key areas of the business, while growing its leadership position in vertical search and building out its media and user-generated content offerings.

Established in 1999, SideStep, Inc. pioneered the travel search sector and is led by a management team of seasoned Internet veterans. The company originally developed and successfully deployed a downloadable toolbar that enabled consumers to compare their travel options across multiple sites for the first time. In 2005, SideStep unveiled www.sidestep.com, its comparison-shopping Web site, with options from more than 600 airlines, 150,000 hotels and 30,000 car rental locations worldwide. Since the launch of its Web site, the company has also incorporated local activities, deals, vacation packages, travel guides and cruises into its travel mix, and now serves more than 5 million consumers a month. As part of its growing content strategy, SideStep acquired TravelPost.com in October 2006. With this latest funding, the company will continue growing its user-generated content business in new ways.

Through the strength of its team, products and technology, SideStep has earned the confidence and established partnerships with the largest names in travel, including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Continental Airlines, US Airways, JetBlue Airways, Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, Enterprise, Avis and Budget, and has assembled for advertisers a broad audience through its network of engaged consumers across all demographics.

"The travel search category is fundamentally changing the way consumers research and shop for travel," said Rob Solomon, president and CEO, SideStep. "The commitment and confidence of these premier financial partners is recognition of both the huge potential of travel search and of SideStep's leading position within that market."

"SideStep is a tremendous consumer offering with outstanding market potential," said Robert Abbott, general partner at Norwest Venture Partners who will serve on the SideStep board. "The company's technology, user-generated content, search products and leadership have earned the confidence of this combined investor group as a travel media company that will drive vertical search forward and create huge value for consumers."

About SideStep, Inc.

SideStep, the Internet's leading travel search company, delivers the most comprehensive selection of travel choices at the best prices to more than five million consumers each month. SideStep has been named one of TIME Magazine's "50 Coolest Web Sites," a PC World "World Class Site" and one of its "Best Products of 2006," and declared "Best of the Web" by both Forbes and BusinessWeek Online. The company has direct relationships with the largest travel suppliers in the industry and works with a variety of leading world-class brands, providing relevant results from more than 600 airlines, 150,000 hotels and 30,000 car rental sites worldwide. The Company also operates TravelPost.com (www.travelpost.com), the Web's largest independently owned hotel review community. Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, SideStep is privately held and has raised more than $30 million in funding from Trident Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, PAR Capital, Saints Capital and Leader Ventures. For more information, visit www.sidestep.com.

About Norwest Venture Partners

Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) is a global venture capital firm that has partnered with entrepreneurs to build great businesses for more than 45 years. NVP focuses on investments in information technology including: consumer Internet and media, software, services, enterprise and communications systems, and semiconductor/components. The firm currently manages more than $2.5 billion in venture capital out of its office in Palo Alto, California.

NVP has funded over 400 companies since inception. Some of the firm's recent investments and transactions include Airespace (acquired by Cisco Systems), deCarta, HedgeStreet, mBlox, Mercora, Resonext Communications (acquired by RF Micro Devices), Spinnaker Networks (acquired by Network Appliance), TURN, Wallop and Winphoria Networks (acquired by Motorola). NVP has also funded such market leaders as Actel Corporation, Brocade Communications, Cerent (acquired by Cisco Systems), Documentum, Extreme Networks, Forte Software (acquired by Sun Microsystems), PeopleSoft and Tivoli Systems (acquired by IBM). For more information, please visit www.nvp.com.

Source: Business Wire

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