ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXLS) announced a definitive agreement to acquire iMerit for up to $310 million in upfront and future consideration. The transaction, valued at $170 million upfront and $140 million in incentives and earnouts over two years, is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026. This strategic move strengthens EXL’s ability to help enterprises achieve measurable outcomes from AI, builds partnerships with leading foundation model builders, and expands EXL’s reach into high-growth AI tech sectors such as high tech, mobility, and autonomous systems.

Rohit Kapoor, chairman and chief executive officer of EXL, emphasized that success requires industry-specific data, rigorous evaluation, and reinforcement learning to deliver reliable results. He stated that the acquisition strengthens EXL’s AI strategy and ability to help clients move from experimentation to production. By combining iMerit’s capabilities with EXL’s domain expertise and AI platforms, the company aims to set the standard for trusted, accountable, and high-performing enterprise AI.

Strategic Integration and Capabilities

iMerit enhances EXL’s platform and human intelligence capabilities through its Ango platform and Scholars network. The Ango platform powers sophisticated data interactions with GenAI models, enabling chain-of-thought reasoning, red teaming, and multimodal evaluations. The Scholars network expands EXL’s domain expertise through iMerit’s global network of specialists, including physicians, scientists, engineers, linguists, and other subject matter experts who support human intelligence-driven feedback workflows for reinforcement learning.

EXL will integrate the Ango platform with its agentic platforms, including EXLerate.ai, EXLdata.ai, and EXLdecision.ai. This integration will combine expert human judgment, model evaluation, and enterprise-scale execution to create an end-to-end AI platform. The combined capabilities are designed to help enterprises accelerate the transition from pilot to production-scale AI.

Transaction Details

Radha Ramaswami Basu, chief executive officer and founder of iMerit, expressed excitement about the acquisition, noting that both companies share a belief that specialized high-quality data is the foundation of AI success. She highlighted that the partnership will bring insights from AI innovators to companies seeking to unlock their proprietary data, leveraging EXL’s industry expertise, complementary technology, and trusted enterprise relationships.

The acquisition positions EXL at the center of next-gen AI development, leveraging iMerit’s client relationships with leading foundation model companies. EXL and its clients will benefit from early insights into model training, fine-tuning, and improvement. This also positions EXL to help enterprises build fit-for-purpose small language models tailored to their data and workflows, particularly in regulated industries such as healthcare, insurance, banking, and capital markets.