EXLService Holdings to Acquire Indian AI Training Firm iMerit for $310 Million

EXLService Holdings, the New York-listed analytics and AI services company, has agreed to acquire iMerit, an AI data annotation and training firm with deep roots in India, for $310 million. The deal, reported by Business Standard, is one of the most significant transactions in the AI data services space involving an Indian company in recent years.

iMerit has built its business on providing the annotated training data that AI and machine learning models require to function accurately — from computer vision tasks to natural language processing. The company operates large-scale data labelling operations in India, employing a significant workforce that handles complex annotation work for global AI developers and enterprises. Its human-in-the-loop approach has made it a trusted partner for organisations that need reliable, high-quality AI training pipelines.

For EXLService, the acquisition dramatically bolsters its AI capabilities at a time when demand for end-to-end AI services — from model training to deployment — is accelerating. EXL has been expanding aggressively into AI-driven analytics, and adding iMerit's data infrastructure and workforce gives it a ready-made platform to serve clients building or refining AI systems.

The deal also highlights the growing strategic value of AI training data as a business asset. As AI models become more specialised and domain-specific, the need for curated, accurately labelled datasets is only intensifying. For India's broader AI ecosystem, the $310 million valuation signals that the country's data services talent pool — long undervalued relative to its software peers — is now attracting serious capital attention.