TRANSLATION company Lingo24 is looking into setting up a permanent base in the United States as it bids to extend its presence there.

Founder Christian Arno said location would be key as its customer base there was quite spread out.

Las Vegas is one option being considered but Mr Arno confirmed no decision had yet been made.

He said: "There is so much opportunity in the US. Our challenge there is not so much focus as we have that now but where we will base an on the ground operation in the next year or two."

That came as the Edinburgh business reported an 11 per cent rise in revenue for 2014 to £8.28 million.

During the year the company took in its first external investment. While the exact size of the deal has not been revealed it has been categorised as multi-million pound.

Mr Arno said that had helped the company start to plan for a quicker pace of growth in the future as well as beefing up sales and marketing, technology and senior management teams.

He said: "It was a year of transition with taking on investment for the first time and starting to build the foundations to be a much bigger business in the future."

The investment was headed by a Scottish consortium, led by former Wood Mackenzie chairman Paul Gregory, along with US based Ted Alling. Mr Gregory is now chairman at Lingo24.

Mr Arno said: "When you speak to lawyers and investors around Edinburgh and they hear Paul Gregory is involved then there is a great deal of respect involved. We are starting to see why that is. He manages to combine an incredibly positive approach, which makes people feel they can do things much more than they thought they could do before, with real commercial insight. Ted is helping us open doors in the US."

Lingo24, which employs 220 people around the world with more than 20 in Scotland, said it had grown US revenue during the year by 59 per cent with 68 per cent of total sales now coming from outside the UK.

It named key clients as the headphones brand Beats by Dre, software company Eventbrite and The Economist Group. It also continues to work for other blue chip clients such as sportswear giant adidas.

Mr Arno said the business, which also offers digital marketing and software integration services, was not releasing profit numbers at this time as it was still investing heavily to underpin its growth strategy.

He said: "We are in investment mode and investing money for the future. We have plenty of funds for the next couple of years to do the things we need to do and get us back to the position where we don't need any further investment. We are in a good place and performance has been in line with expectations."

Mr Arno said a Lingo24 API, which stands for application programme interface, will allow the company's technology to seamlessly be embedded as "part of the plumbing" for clients online.

Along with that it is investing upwards of £50,000 into integrating its software with major e-commerce platforms which are already in the market.