EXL × iMerit
Global data and AI company EXL completed its acquisition of iMerit, a specialist in AI data services, in August 2026. [35, 37] The total transaction was valued at up to $310 million, consisting of $170 million in upfront payment and $140 million in performance-based incentives and earnouts. [41] The deal integrates iMerit's Ango Hub platform and its network of domain experts for model training and evaluation into EXL's end-to-end AI services. [41, 44]
The asset
Acquisition of iMerit, a company specializing in AI model training, data annotation, evaluation, and reinforcement learning.
The record
- Seller status
- Going concern
- Sector
- AI training data services
- Modalities
- images, video, audio, text
- Jurisdiction
- US
- Personal data
- A prior public dataset release by the seller was done in accordance with HIPAA regulations. [5]
What it means if you hold data
This acquisition highlights the strategic importance of high-quality data annotation and human-in-the-loop evaluation for building enterprise-grade AI, particularly in regulated industries. It shows a trend of larger data service companies acquiring specialized AI training firms to offer a full-stack solution. [44]