NEW YORK & KOLKATA | 29 June 2026: As enterprises accelerate the transition from AI experimentation to production-scale deployment, the quality of enterprise data and model training is emerging as a critical competitive differentiator. Reflecting this shift, data analytics and digital operations company EXL has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire AI data solutions specialist iMerit in a transaction valued at up to US$310 million.

The financial structure comprises an upfront payment of US$170 million, with an additional US$140 million linked to performance-based milestones over the next two years. Expected to close during the third quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals, the acquisition also represents a significant liquidity event for India’s AI startup ecosystem. Existing investors including British International Investment (BII), Omidyar Network, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, and Khosla Impact are expected to realize substantial returns through the transaction.

The acquisition reflects a broader trend reshaping the enterprise AI landscape. As organizations increasingly recognize that AI success depends not only on foundation models but also on high-quality proprietary data, domain expertise, and model governance, technology services firms are rapidly expanding their capabilities across the AI value chain.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

  • US$310 million acquisition: EXL will acquire iMerit through a combination of upfront consideration and performance-linked earnouts.
  • Production-grade AI capabilities: The acquisition strengthens EXL’s ability to build, train, evaluate, and deploy enterprise AI solutions across regulated industries.
  • 3,000+ AI specialists added: EXL expands its access to specialized AI engineering talent across India, Bhutan, and the United States.
  • Proprietary AI platforms: The transaction includes Ango Hub, iMerit’s multimodal data annotation platform, along with a global network of domain experts.
  • Strengthening India’s AI ecosystem: The deal reinforces India’s growing role in AI data engineering, model evaluation, and enterprise AI enablement.

The Acquisition and Strategic Fit

EXL, a global data analytics and digital operations company employing more than 67,000 professionals worldwide, has built its business around managing complex workflows across insurance, healthcare, banking, and other data-intensive industries. As enterprise AI adoption accelerates, these organizations increasingly require more than traditional automation, they need AI systems that are reliable, explainable, and trained on industry-specific data.

Explaining the strategic rationale, Rohit Kapoor, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of EXL, stated:

“

As organizations reimagine their businesses with AI, success requires industry-specific data, rigorous evaluation and reinforcement learning to deliver reliable results in business-critical workflows… The acquisition of iMerit strengthens EXL’s AI strategy and ability to help clients move from experimentation to production.

– Rohit Kapoor, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of EX

By integrating iMerit, EXL expands beyond conventional analytics and process management into one of the fastest-growing segments of enterprise AI: developing high-quality, domain-specific data required to build reliable AI systems. Rather than offering isolated AI services, the combined organization can support the full enterprise AI lifecycle, from enterprise data preparation and model training to deployment, governance, and continuous optimization.

According to the company, iMerit’s proprietary capabilities will be integrated with EXL’s AI platforms, including EXLerate.ai and EXLdecision.ai, enabling clients to combine enterprise data, AI model development, and business process execution within a unified ecosystem.

Inside iMerit: Building AI Behind the Scenes

Founded in 2012 by technology entrepreneur Radha Ramaswami Basu, iMerit has built a differentiated business model combining advanced AI data engineering with inclusive workforce development. Today, the company employs more than 3,000 professionals across India, Bhutan, and the United States, with women representing more than half of its global workforce.

Operating largely behind the scenes, iMerit supports global technology companies including Microsoft, eBay, and Autodesk by providing specialized AI data services ranging from computer vision and medical image annotation to reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF).

A particularly valuable asset within the acquisition is iMerit’s Scholars Network, a curated community of physicians, scientists, engineers, linguists, and domain specialists who validate and refine AI outputs. As enterprises deploy AI into highly regulated sectors, human expertise remains essential for ensuring explainability, compliance, and trust. Whether evaluating radiology scans, interpreting legal contracts, or validating financial decisions, these experts provide the human oversight that production-grade enterprise AI increasingly demands.

Speaking about the strategic alignment, Radha Ramaswami Basu, Founder and CEO of iMerit, said:

“

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.

– Radha Ramaswami Basu, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of iMerit

AI is Building Enterprise Capability

The acquisition reflects a broader transformation underway across the global technology services industry. As generative AI becomes mainstream, enterprise clients are increasingly discovering that competitive advantage lies not in accessing foundation models, which are becoming widely available, but in developing proprietary data assets, domain expertise, and trusted AI workflows.

This is reshaping how technology services firms compete. Traditional strengths such as application development, infrastructure management, and business process outsourcing are increasingly being complemented by capabilities around data engineering, AI evaluation, reinforcement learning, model governance, and responsible AI deployment.

For India, the transaction carries broader significance. It demonstrates the continued evolution of the country’s AI ecosystem from software development toward higher-value capabilities that underpin enterprise AI adoption globally. Organizations are increasingly building expertise in data preparation, annotation, model evaluation, and human-in-the-loop engineering, the foundational layers required for production-scale AI.

Rather than replacing technology services, AI is creating an entirely new category of enterprise capability where intelligent systems and specialized human expertise increasingly work together.

Industry Insights

  1. Enterprise AI competitiveness is increasingly determined by proprietary data quality, governance, and domain expertise rather than access to foundation models alone.
  2. Human-in-the-loop engineering remains essential as enterprises deploy AI into regulated industries where explainability, accuracy, and compliance cannot be compromised.
  3. Technology services firms are increasingly using acquisitions to accelerate AI capability development rather than relying solely on organic investments.
  4. India’s AI ecosystem continues to move up the value chain, from software engineering and digital operations toward specialized AI infrastructure, model evaluation, and enterprise AI enablement.

Concluding Remarks

The EXL–iMerit transaction reflects a defining shift in the evolution of enterprise AI. As organizations move beyond experimentation, success will increasingly depend on the ability to build trusted, domain-specific AI systems supported by high-quality data, robust governance, and continuous human oversight.

For India’s technology ecosystem, the acquisition reinforces an important trend: the country’s role in global AI is expanding beyond software development toward enabling the foundational infrastructure that powers enterprise-scale AI adoption. As this transition accelerates, capabilities in data engineering, model evaluation, and AI operations are likely to become as strategically important as software engineering has been over the past two decades.

Curated by SSF Global

Tracking the shifts shaping GCCs, enterprise ecosystems, and the future of global business.

Share on      

SSF Global is a Global Community for Enterprise Function Leaders and serves as a research & advisory platform focused on Global Business Services (GBS), Global Capability Centres (GCCs), and the evolution of enterprise innovation in India and beyond. We track, publish, and partner in narratives that shape how capability centres transform into hubs of trust, intelligence, and sustainable growth. We also evaluate, assess and benchmark the GCCs for their performance, maturity and other parameters using our proprietary tools built from the knowledge gained from direct interaction with our members (GCCs & GBS).