EXLService Holdings to acquire AI training firm iMerit for $310 million

The acquisition will strengthen EXL's AI capabilities, expand its presence in high-growth sectors and deepen partnerships with foundation model developers

Business process management (BPM) company EXLService Holdings said it will acquire artificial intelligence (AI) model-training firm iMerit for about $310 million to expand its offerings in the fast-growing technology segment.

 

The move boosts EXL's ability to help enterprises achieve measurable outcomes from AI, builds partnerships with leading foundation-model developers, and expands its reach into high-growth AI technology sectors.

 

"As organisations reimagine their businesses with AI, success requires industry-specific data, rigorous evaluation and reinforcement learning to deliver reliable results in business-critical workflows," said Rohit Kapoor, chairman and chief executive officer of EXL. "The acquisition of iMerit 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, we are setting the standard for AI that is trusted, accountable and built to perform in the enterprise."

 

BPM companies globally have been pivoting from providing low-value, repeatable tasks, which are increasingly being automated by AI and AI agents, to higher-value services such as workflow orchestration that offer better margins and revenue opportunities.

 

For decades, the industry — much like information technology (IT) services companies — depended on headcount-based delivery, fixed-pricing models and labour-intensive operations. The rise of AI and generative AI (GenAI) has shaken the industry and transformed how service providers interact with clients.

 

Companies such as Genpact have launched accounts-payable agents, while Firstsource has introduced UnBPO, moving away from traditional services and focusing more on expertise, innovation and outcome-driven solutions. Such moves may cannibalise existing revenue streams, but analysts say companies need to adopt these models to evolve into agentic enterprises rather than remain pure-play BPM firms.

 

For example, Cognizant said in March that its BPM business was growing faster than the overall company and delivering better margins. It generated higher throughput using a combination of humans and agents, which customers have widely adopted. At the same time, companies are tapping into a larger addressable market that was previously beyond the scope of third-party service providers.

 

iMerit helps clients train large language and multimodal models to improve accuracy, precision and effectiveness. Based in California, its clients include eBay, Microsoft and Autodesk, and it works in areas such as autonomous mobility, healthcare, robotics and agriculture.

 

The acquisition also expands EXL's presence in high-growth AI sectors, including high technology, mobility, autonomous systems and physical AI. iMerit's expertise across text, image, video, voice and LiDAR data creates a strong foundation for AI solutions powering robotics, autonomous vehicles and intelligent real-world environments.

 

"We see EXL as an ideal leader in this defining moment for AI. We can build on our work with AI innovators and bring those insights to companies seeking to unlock their proprietary data," said Radha Ramaswami Basu, chief executive officer and founder of iMerit.

 

The $310 million acquisition involves an upfront consideration of $170 million, with an additional $140 million in incentives and earnouts over two years contingent on meeting specified milestones.