C&R is expected to outsource development work from Pentamedia. While declining to peg the revenue potential from the alliance, Mr V Chandrasekaran, chief executive officer, Pentamedia said that the company wants the Asian region to contribute 20 per cent of the company's revenues in the near future with the bulk of it from Japan.

With this alliance in place, Pentamedia will market its digital assets in Japan through C&R. It would dub some of its content such as Sindbad, Alibaba etc into Japanese for the island nation's audience.

Commenting on the alliance, Mr Yukihiro Ikawa, president and chief executive officer, said "working with Pentamedia, C&R will be able to meet its production requirements."

He further added that Japan accounts for just four per cent of India's IT exports while in entertainment domain the trade between the countries was close to nil. He pegged the animation market from a production perspective at $40 million and the entire industry size at $1.5 billion. Another possibility being looked at by the two companies is jointly funding projects in the animation and gaming niche in Japan. Mr Chandrasekaran said a joint venture between the companies would be taken up at an appropriate point of time.Among other things, the Japanese company would utilise Pentamedia facilities to train its professionals and also make use of the latter's computer-based training material.

The Internet broadcasting venture of Pentamedia, Num TV, is planning to stream Japanese-based content. C&R assistance would be sought for this, added company officials.