What Toaster team does

noco Inc. (株式会社noco) is a privately held Tokyo-based SaaS company, founded May 12, 2017, that operates the HelpDog Manual platform — an AI-assisted manual creation and knowledge management product originally launched under the brand name 'Toaster Team' and rebranded to 'HelpDog Manual' on April 18, 2025. The platform enables non-technical employees to produce standardized step-by-step manuals, video guides, glossary-linked documentation, and externally shareable knowledge bases from a single title input via a generative-AI drafting engine, with built-in screen recording, one-click image annotation, multi-language auto-translation (up to 5 languages on the top tier), QR-code publication, and gamified adoption leaderboards. Underlying infrastructure runs on AWS Japan Tokyo and is ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified.

The product is sold via a three-tier annual subscription (LITE ¥35,000/month for 50 users, STANDARD ¥60,000/month for 100 users, BUSINESS ¥120,000/month for 200 users, plus ¥10,000/20-user modular add-ons), with a 7-day no-credit-card self-serve trial and an inside-sales overlay for enterprise pricing. Go-to-market is exclusively domestic Japan, exclusively direct (website + inside sales), and segmented vertically across 12 industry guides with particularly deep penetration in professional services (tax, legal, accounting, social-insurance firms) and manufacturing.

The company is backed by Japanese VCs Coral Capital, Appli Ventures, CARTA VENTURES, and Headline Asia, plus founders and individual investors. It has reached 2,700+ cumulative customer deployments, with reported enterprise logos including Fujitsu, Toshiba, JTB, Asahi Kasei, Bandai Namco, Pioneer, and Hinomaru Taxi, alongside a long tail of SMB and mid-market customers. Reported aggregate customer outcomes are 88% reduction in manual creation time, 67% reduction in new-hire training time, 50% reduction in training costs, and 84% reduction in support workload. Adjacent products under the HelpDog family (self-support system, form builder, HelpPark academy) extend the platform's footprint into broader SMB productivity.

Name

Toaster team

Legal name

noco株式会社（noco Inc.）

Website

https://toaster.how

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Short description

Toaster team (noco Inc.) operates HelpDog Manual, a Japan-only cloud SaaS that uses generative AI to let non-technical staff create, manage, and share step-by-step operational manuals and video guides, sold via tiered annual subscriptions to 2,700+ mostly SMB and mid-market customers across professional services, manufacturing, and retail.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Minami

HQ country

Japan

HQ region

Asia

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. SaaS Subscription (Tiered Plans): Three-tier subscription model (LITE, STANDARD, BUSINESS) with annual billing. Pricing scales by user seat count (50/100/200 accounts). Additional user packs available. Initial setup fees quoted separately for enterprise deployments. Revenue is recurring annually with upgrade flexibility.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

HelpDog Manual (formerly Toaster team) is a cloud-based SaaS platform that enables organizations to create, manage, and distribute business manuals using AI-assisted content generation. The product generates manual drafts in seconds from a single title input, supports step-by-step templates, integrated video screen recording, multi-language auto-translation, and external sharing with access controls, targeting SMBs through large enterprises in Japan for internal operations, employee onboarding, and customer-facing documentation.

Product overview

HelpDog Inc. (noco株式会社) operates a unified product suite under the 'ヘルプドッグ' (HelpDog) brand. The core product is ヘルプドッグマニュアル (HelpDog Manual), formerly known as 'トースターチーム' (Toaster Team), which rebranded in April 2025. The platform offers AI-powered manual creation, video recording, knowledge management, and team collaboration tools as a cloud-based SaaS. Related products include ヘルプドッグ (self-support system), ヘルプドッグフォーム (form management), and ヘルプパーク (training academy), collectively serving over 2,700 companies for operational standardization and employee onboarding.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• HelpDog Manual (ヘルプドッグマニュアル) Cloud-based SaaS platform for AI-assisted manual creation and knowledge management. Enables any employee to create step-by-step business manuals, video guides, glossaries, and team documentation without design skills, and distribute them internally or externally with access controls. Formerly known as "Toaster Team" until April 2025. Used by over 2,700 companies across Japan including Fujitsu, TOSHIBA, Pioneer, JTB, and BANDAI NAMCO.
• HelpDog (ヘルプドッグ)

Quantifiable outcome

• 88% reduction in manual creation time (industry aggregate)
• +10 more outcomes

Named customers45 records

Segments11 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration6 records

AI capability5 records

Feature9 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• AWS (Amazon Web Services)coreTechnology or IntegrationCloud infrastructure provider. All HelpDog Manual data is stored on AWS Japan (Tokyo region) data centers. AWS's compliance programs, encryption standards, and global infrastructure underpin the service's security certifications (ISO 27001).

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Confluence (Atlassian): Confluence is the enterprise wiki/knowledge management incumbent widely deployed in Japanese enterprises for internal documentation and process manuals. It competes on the same documentation use case but as part of the broader Atlassian ecosystem rather than a Japan-specialized tool.
• Notion: Notion is the dominant global horizontal workspace that increasingly addresses manual/knowledge management and team documentation. It competes with HelpDog Manual for the same manual/wiki use case but as part of a much broader productivity suite rather than a specialized vertical.
• Kintone (Cybozu): Kintone by Cybozu is a leading Japanese no-code business app platform widely used for internal workflow and process documentation in Japanese SMBs. While not a dedicated manual tool, it overlaps on internal knowledge/process use cases and competes in the same Japan SMB buyer segment.

Emerging players

• Tettra: Tettra is an AI-powered knowledge base for internal teams (now part of Sana), positioned as an alternative to Notion and Confluence for company wikis and SOPs. It overlaps HelpDog Manual's manual/knowledge management core but lacks Japan-specific vertical content and localization.
• Document360: Document360 is a knowledge base platform supporting both internal documentation and external help centers with AI-assisted authoring. It shares HelpDog Manual's structured manual creation, external publishing, and access control capabilities but is global/English-first.
• Guru: Guru is a US-based knowledge management SaaS focused on AI-powered, browser-embedded knowledge delivery for support and operations teams. It overlaps HelpDog Manual's use case of structured internal knowledge/menus but with a Western/English-language focus and different go-to-market motion.

Direct peers

• Stock: Stock Inc. is the closest direct competitor in Japan, offering a cloud-based manual/knowledge management platform targeted at the same Japanese SMB and mid-market professional-services buyers that HelpDog Manual serves. Both compete on AI-assisted manual creation, template-driven content, and external sharing for the Japanese market.
• Qiita Team: Qiita Team by Increments Inc. is a Japanese knowledge-sharing and team documentation platform frequently shortlisted alongside HelpDog Manual for internal wiki/manual use cases. It shares the Japan-centric knowledge management positioning and engineering-team customer base.
• NotePM: NotePM by Kivo Inc. is a Japanese SaaS for internal manual/knowledge management serving the same professional services and SMB segments. It overlaps directly on template-driven manual creation, internal sharing, and search — competing for the same Japanese 'help/manual tool' shortlist.

Regional players

• manabo (Lark for Education equivalent / cloud manual platform): manabo is a Japanese SMB-focused cloud manual/knowledge management platform frequently compared head-to-head with HelpDog Manual in ITreview category rankings. It targets similar Japan SMB/manual creation use cases with comparable pricing and feature parity.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCVpM2-cefOiC1X-3TqE55MQ
• Facebookfacebook.com/noco.toaster.team
• Xx.com/toaster_how

Compliance3 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Toaster team