EXL Service Holdings said it will buy iMerit in a deal valued at up to $310 million, paying $170 million upfront and another $140 million in incentives and earnouts over two years.
The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions and antitrust review.
EXL said the deal will deepen its AI capabilities by adding iMerit’s model training, evaluation and reinforcement learning tools, along with its Angie platform and Scholars network. The company said it will integrate iMerit’s AnGo platform with its own agentic platforms, including exlerate.ai, exldata.ai and exldecision.ai.
The move also expands EXL’s reach into high-growth AI sectors such as high tech, mobility, autonomous systems and physical AI. iMerit’s work spans text, image, video, voice and lidar data.
EXL said iMerit’s relationships with foundation model builders will give it earlier access to how models are trained, fine-tuned and improved. The company also said the deal strengthens its ability to build fit-for-purpose small language models for enterprise clients.
The transaction adds a global specialist network that includes physicians, scientists, engineers and linguists, which EXL said will support human intelligence-driven feedback workflows for reinforcement learning. The market has reacted to these announcements by moving the company's shares 0.31% to a price of $26.24. For the full picture, make sure to review ExlService's 8-K report.
