Trilegal Advises iMerit, Its shareholders On USD 310 million Acquisition By EXL

Trilegal advised iMerit and its shareholders in connection with the proposed acquisition of iMerit by ExlService Holdings, Inc., a global data and AI company, in a transaction valued at up to USD 310 million in upfront and future consideration. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions.

Trilegal’s scope included advising on various structuring aspects of the transaction, including structuring pertaining to treatment of outstanding ESOPs of iMerit, and negotiating and finalising the share purchase agreement and ancillary documentation, including disclosure schedules, restrictive covenant agreements, and employment agreements. Trilegal also advised iMerit in relation to the transition of its employees, and in negotiation and finalisation of the related documentation for the same, including transfer agreements, services agreements, and offer letters.

iMerit is a recognized leader in AI model training, evaluation and reinforcement learning, focused on helping its clients train large language and multimodal models to improve accuracy, precision and effectiveness.

ExlService Holdings, Inc. is a global data and AI company serving industries including insurance, healthcare, banking and financial services, media, retail, and others.

EXL will now be at the center of how next-gen AI is built, leveraging iMerit’s client relationships with leading foundation model companies. EXL and its clients will benefit from early insight into how models are trained, fine-tuned and improved. This also positions EXL to help enterprises build fit-for-purpose small language models tailored to their data and workflows.

iMerit enhances EXL’s platform and human intelligence capabilities through its Ango platform and Scholars network. Ango powers sophisticated data interactions with GenAI models, enabling chain-of-thought reasoning, red teaming and multimodal evaluations. Scholars expands EXL’s domain expertise through iMerit’s global network of specialists, including physicians, scientists, engineers, linguists and other subject matter experts who support human intelligence-driven feedback workflows for reinforcement learning.

The Trilegal Deal Team advising on the matter was led by Partners: Abhishek Guha and Tanya Uppal; and supported by Senior Associates: Shreya Gokhale and Vijay Chawla.

Labour and Employment Practice team advising on the matter was led by Partner: Apeksha Mattoo; and supported by Senior Associate: Maitreya Sharma; and Associates: Achintya Anupam and Anjali AR.

Real Estate Practice team advising on the matter was led by Partner: Monika Bhonsale; and supported by Senior Associate: Uday Shah; and Associate: Muskan Dadia. Competition Practice team advising on the matter was led by Partner: Gauri Chhabra.

Intellectual Property Practice team advising on the matter was led by Partner: Kirti Balasubramanian Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Practice team advising on the matter was led by Partner Jishnu Sanyal.