Craneware, the Edinburgh software specialist in healthcare systems for the US market, is on course to become a $1 billion firm as it predicts a tenfold future sales increase.

The Tanfield-based firm, which has offices in Atlanta and Pittsburgh, said it had over 100% increase in new sales as it released results for the year ended June, 30 2018.

Profit before tax increased 12% to $18.9 million (£14.8m), and total visible revenue rose 20% to $192.9m (£150m).

The data and revenue management company has found a niche in the US and, with its strategies so far unaffected by American politics because of their longer term nature, it is also looking to add to its 330-strong worker base.

The recruitment push comes after Brexit uncertainty led a number of UK-based staff - in single figures - to leave the company to return to mainland Europe.

Although not technically potentially a "unicorn", as it is a public and not a private firm, it is expected to reach the $1bn (£779m) market capitalisation milestone, possibly within months.

Before the results were revealed, Craneware's market capitalisation was $730m (£569m), and just hours after the news it saw a 15% increase to stand at $840m (£655m).

The Herald:

Keith Neilson, Craneware chief executive, said: “We feel pretty confident in saying, despite the modest success we had, there is far more success in future for us going forward.

“Our sales line this year was just shy of $100m (£78m) and there is an opportunity for us to go significantly through the $1bn (£779m) a year sales line.

"It is about scaling up for that.”

He said: "We’ve got a decent amount of experience under our belts now and a good quality, solid management team to navigate through that.

“With Brexit, we have seen members of our team – we have just opened in Glasgow as well but it [staff leaving] was all in Edinburgh – we’ve seen members of our team there that were from mainland Europe decide for certainty for their family to relocate back to mainland Europe.

“The biggest impact for us has been them."

He said: "Whereas four years ago we were easily hiring and making up for short numbers of developers within Edinburgh particularly but Scotland generally and now worldwide, we were able to attract people from elsewhere in Europe, but that has been pretty much turned off.

"One of our biggest restrictions in being able to grow faster is being able to get quality people in, that is one of our biggest restrictions and we would certainly encourage your readers that have got the relevant skills to apply direct to us for positions.

"The reality is that the value that the world is getting out of healthcare is diminishing compared to the increasing cost of healthcare.

"We are getting poorer and poorer returns for greater and greater cost.

"We are particularly seeing that in the developed world and that has been seen most acutely in the US.

"It’s a combination of different things, people have over the post-war years been living more unhealthy lives, the build-up of that is one of the biggest things coming."

Mr Neilson said: "We are definitely looking at trying to continue to add as many engineers as we possibly can.

"The opportunity for us to go from the modest success that we have had is a fraction of where we could really be, and the opportunity is in front of us and also the ability to profoundly impact healthcare.

"That will come through selling more of our products, continually improving existing products and creating new products, and for that we need engineering resources, we need to add more people in."