By Sunshine K. Mugrabi

SideStep, a Santa Clara, California-based online travel search site, announced Wednesday that it has raised $15 million in venture financing led by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP). Round participants also include Trident Capital, Leader Ventures, and Saints Capital.

, a Santa Clara, California-based online travel search site, announced Wednesday that it has raised $15 million in venture financing led by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP). Round participants also include Trident Capital, Leader Ventures, and Saints Capital.

This was the third funding round for the company, which has raised a total of $32 million since its launch in 1999. Robert Abbott, general partner at Norwest Venture Partners, was named to serve on the company’s board of directors. He will join another new board member, Owen Van Natta, chief operating officer of Facebook, who was elected to the board in late January.

Facebook

The site is part of a growing niche, though it’s unclear at what point the category will be oversaturated. Analysts say that for now, as advertisers recognize that the internet is becoming the standard place to seek airfares and hotel rates, sites like SideStep have a lot of growth potential.

“A lot of the advertising dollars for travel has moved online,” said Edward Woo, analyst at Wedbush Morgan.

While not exactly a household name, SideStep is a comparison shopping site that aggregates airfare, hotel, and car rental rates in real time. It also offers user-generated travel reviews, having acquired review site TravelPost.com in October 2006. The company has its own proprietary system to tap into rates for 600 airlines, 150,000 hotels, and 30,000 car rental locations worldwide. (One of the few holdouts to its system is Southwest Airlines, which remains independent from most online search systems.)

SideStep is distinct from travel sites such as Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia in that it doesn’t sell tickets or hotel reservations. This is intentional, said Rob Solomon, CEO of Sidestep.

OrbitzExpedia

“We think combination of search for best fares and reviews makes us a … great destination,” he said.

The funding will be used to expand into the European and Asian travel markets, said Mr. Solomon. Currently, the site chiefly serves the United States and the United Kingdom. In addition, he said, he plans to expand the infrastructure to support user reviews.

United Kingdom

A recent survey of 1,022 travelers found that over half selected a specific hotel based on information gathered online, according to Destination Analysts, a San Francisco, California-based research firm. The survey also found that 31 percent of respondents used reviews of hotels posted by their fellow travelers to plan their trips in the past year.

Sidestep, which began as a toolbar and launched as a full website in 2005, is hardly alone in its field. It must go head to head with two other sites, Kayak and Mobissimo. In the review category, it competes with travel social networking sites like WAYN, which recently garnered $11 million venture funding, and TripAdvisor. (See: Travel Site Wayn Grabs $11)

KayakWAYNTravel Site Wayn Grabs $11

In December 2006, Sidestep had 2.7 million unique visitors, approximately the same number as Kayak, according to comScore Media Metrix. Mobissimo lagged the pack with 293,000 unique visitors—however, that site has seen remarkable growth, tripling its site traffic year over year.

Like many Web 2.0 operations, Sidestep is entirely supported through advertising. Mr. Solomon declined to state the company’s revenues, but said it will be profitable in the second quarter of this year and cited revenue growth 30 to 50 percent every year.