(Bloomberg) -- Uruguayan IT services company Nearsure plans to increase its staff by 50% to about 850 people this year to meet growing demand from corporate clients in the US, according to its top executive.

Expanding Nearsure’s stable of bilingual software engineers is key to increasing sales from $37.5 million last year to about $55 million in 2024, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Giuliana Corbo said in an interview.

“We’re betting that 80% of our growth will come from accounts we already have and 20% from new accounts we will start to work on this year,” said Corbo, 32, whose company started operations in 2018.

Uruguayan information technology companies have leveraged the South American country’s time zone proximity to the US and pool of English-speaking talent to win business with American companies. The US bought about 87% of Uruguay’s tech exports of $1.8 billion in 2022, up from a 64% share in 2018, according to data compiled by industry trade group Cuti.

US clients including fintech and healthcare firms account for 95% of revenue at Nearsure, which provides remote staff augmentation — a type of outsourcing — and project development services from two dozen countries in Latin American and Europe. Corbo wants as much as 5% of sales this year to come from Europe, where the company is seeking its first accounts.

“We hope that percentage grows. Diversification is always good,” she said. “After Europe we’ll look at other destinations.”

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