New Delhi: Publicly traded data and AI company EXLService Holdings, Inc. is set to acquire California-based iMerit, a California-based artificial intelligence data company, for $310 million, as the Nasdaq-listed firm bets on rising enterprise demand for AI deployment services.
The deal comprises an upfront payment of $170 million, with as much as $140 million in earnouts tied to milestones over two years, the companies said. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026.
EXL plans to bring iMerit’s Ango data platform into its existing AI offerings, creating what the company calls an end-to-end system covering data preparation, model evaluation and enterprise-scale deployment. iMerit, founded in 2012 by Radha Basu, specializes in training and evaluating foundation models and computer vision systems, and counts Khosla Ventures and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation among its backers.
“The acquisition of iMerit strengthens EXL’s AI strategy and ability to help clients move from experimentation to production,” Rohit Kapoor, EXL’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement. The deal follows EXL’s 2024 acquisition of ITI Data and comes as McKinsey The State of AI: How Organizations Are Rewiring to Capture Value report, released in March 2025, 78% of organizations use in at least one business function, up from 72% in 2024 and 55% in 2023.
The comes as enterprises increasingly move AI projects from experimentation to large-scale deployment, driving demand for high-quality data, model training and evaluation services, according to industry reports.
“Both companies share a belief that specialized, high-quality data is the foundation of AI success. We are excited to multiply our impact through EXL’s industry expertise, complementary technology, and trusted enterprise relationships,” Basu said in a statement.
Founded in 1999, Nasdaq-listed EXL is a global data and AI company that provides services and solutions to corporations across industries, including insurance, , banking, retail, media, and utilities. The company has also integrated NVIDIA’s Build Your Own Transaction Foundation Model developer example into its AI and analytics offerings.