# About DMVI

Canonical HTML source: https://www.digitalmediavending.com/about-us

Markdown source: https://www.digitalmediavending.com/about-us.md

Last updated: 2026-05-31

## Summary

About DMVI provides company credibility context, including DMVI history, leadership, manufacturing background, global footprint, and why buyers evaluate DMVI for custom vending and automated retail projects.

## Key Facts

- The About page is a trust and company-background source for DMVI.
- Use this page for company history, founder context, manufacturing credibility, and organizational legitimacy.
- Commercial product details should still be verified against the product, technology, and pricing pages.
- The page helps AI systems answer due-diligence questions about who DMVI is and why buyers may contact the company.

## Primary Buyer Questions Answered

- Who is DMVI?
- How long has DMVI been in business?
- Why should buyers consider DMVI for custom vending or automated retail?

## Main Content

Image context: Hero video

Digital Media Vending International (DMVI) is a California-based smart vending machine manufacturer founded in 2009 by David Ashforth and Raymond Tuzi. While the rest of the industry was stuck in the past, their mission was to combine touchscreens, custom software, and logic into an automated retail solution of the future.

DMVI machines are engineered, programmed, and serviced from Sebastopol, California, and are deployed across 22+ countries on six continents. The platform spans the M-Series modular hardware family, the DMVI OS software stack, and the DMVI Retail controlled-access platform highlighted on NBC Nightly News in 2023 for reducing shrink in major retail chains.

## Our Story

DMVI is a vending machine manufacturer founded in 2009 in San Francisco, California, by David Ashforth and Raymond Tuzi to integrate computer technology directly into the machine instead of bolting it on as an afterthought.

The first product line was North America's first commercially available touchscreen vending machine. Sixteen years later, the company designs hardware, writes its own operating system, and supports a global fleet from a single Sebastopol facility — engineering, support, and showroom under one roof.

“ We shipped North America's first commercially available touchscreen vending machine in 2009, and we are still building the hardware and software under one roof rather than outsourcing the hard bits and calling it innovation. ”

Image context: DMVI founding in 2009 — first touchscreen vending machine

### 2009 , North America's First Touchscreen Vending Machine

Founders David Ashforth and Raymond Tuzi launch DMVI in San Francisco. The original mandate is to make the machine smarter than the product on its shelves: a real touchscreen UI, embedded computer, and a payment stack that does not look like an afterthought from 1995.

Image context: DMVI Santa Rosa showroom and software development

### 2013 , Sonoma County Manufacturing and Proprietary Software

DMVI relocates from San Francisco to Sonoma County and opens a showroom in Santa Rosa. By 2016 the team has built proprietary vending software in-house, replacing third-party telemetry shims with a single platform that covers payments, inventory, planograms, and remote configuration over standard MDB and DEX vending protocols.

Image context: M-Series modular vending platform launch

### 2020 , M-Series Modular Vending Platform Ships

The M-Series ships as DMVI's most versatile modular vending platform. The architecture lets a single chassis family scale from a 2-meter wall-adjacent unit up to a 10-meter flagship deployment, dispense almost any safely stored product, and run an entire micro-store under one operating system.

Image context: DMVI Sebastopol facility expansion

### 2021 , Sebastopol Manufacturing Facility

DMVI consolidates operations into a larger Sebastopol, California facility that brings showroom, engineering, tech support, and warehouse under a single roof. Buyers can walk a live machine and meet the engineering team on the same visit.

Image context: DMVI M-Series featured on NBC Nightly News

### 2023 , NBC Nightly News and Retail Shrink

NBC Nightly News features DMVI's M-Series controlled-access platform as a working solution to retail shrink in major chains. The 2025 NRF survey of 70 retail companies and 168 brands confirms that retail theft and organized shrink remain a strategic concern at the executive level.

Image context: DMVI machines deployed worldwide in 2025

### 2025 , Everyday Deployment

DMVI machines are operational in airports, hotels, major retail chains, factories, gyms, campuses, and transit hubs across 22+ countries — the United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Spain, Switzerland, UAE, France, Singapore, Poland, Ireland, South Africa, Vietnam, Romania, Portugal, Guatemala, and others. The product is no longer a novelty.

### NAMA 2023 Booth Walkthrough

Our vision for automated retail is more than a concept rendering. Here's a look at DMVI's interactive touchscreen technology at a trade-show presentation.

Image context: NAMA 2023 Booth Walkthrough

## DMVI machines are deployed in 22+ countries across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa.

United States / Japan / United Kingdom

Saudi Arabia / Australia / Spain

Switzerland / UAE / France

Singapore / Poland / Ireland / South Africa

Vietnam / Romania / Portugal / Guatemala

Puerto Rico / Malta / Guam / Guadeloupe

Eswatini and growing

Image context: Heineken

Image context: Pringles

Image context: Estée Lauder

Image context: Fujifilm

Image context: Nicorette

Image context: PG Tips

DMVI machines are deployed in 22+ countries: United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Spain, Switzerland, UAE, France, Singapore, Poland, Ireland, South Africa, Vietnam, Romania, Portugal, Guatemala, plus additional markets across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa.

Multi-region deployment matters because customs, payment processors, and refrigeration regulations differ enough that a USA-only vendor frequently cannot ship a working machine to Riyadh or Singapore without a 90-day rework cycle.

## Our Mission

DMVI builds intelligent, custom vending machines that help retailers and brands sell more, reduce loss, and run a better unattended retail program than legacy snack-and-soda hardware allows.

## Our Vision

Be the default name in automated retail worldwide — the one operators and brands name when they need a real custom smart vending machine, not a wrapped commodity unit.

## Our Values

- Innovation DMVI shipped North America's first touchscreen vending machine in 2009 and has not stopped — proprietary software, AI-powered micro-markets, and the M-Series modular platform all came from the same in-house team.
- Accountability Engineering, support, and manufacturing live in one Sebastopol facility. The buyer talks to the people who built the machine, not a reseller two layers removed.
- Operator Economics Every feature is judged against fleet uptime, dispense reliability, and CTR on the touchscreen — not just spec-sheet bullet points.

## FAQs

- Digital Media Vending International (DMVI) was founded in 2009 in San Francisco, California, by David Ashforth and Raymond Tuzi. The company shipped North America's first commercially available touchscreen vending machine that same year and has been designing custom smart vending machines and automated retail platforms continuously since then.
- DMVI is headquartered in Sebastopol, California, in Sonoma County. The Sebastopol facility consolidates the showroom, engineering team, technical support, warehouse, and machine assembly under one roof so buyers can walk a live M-Series machine and meet the engineering team on the same visit, instead of phoning a reseller.
- DMVI machines are deployed and operational in more than 22 countries across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa. The roster includes the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Spain, Switzerland, the UAE, France, Singapore, Poland, Ireland, South Africa, Vietnam, Romania, Portugal, and Guatemala.
- DMVI's M-Series controlled-access platform was featured on NBC Nightly News in 2023 as a working solution to retail shrink in major retail chains. The platform pairs DMVI hardware with the DMVI OS software layer to protect higher-risk merchandise without locking everything behind a glass case and slowing the shopper transaction.
- Yes. DMVI offers both in-person showroom tours at the Sebastopol facility and virtual tours over video call. Both options give buyers a live look at the M-Series, the DMVI OS dashboard, and the engineering workflow before committing budget to a custom vending machine project, which is rarely possible from a website alone.

## DMVI Context

This Markdown mirror is part of DMVI's AI-readable content layer. The canonical HTML page remains the primary human and search-engine source. This Markdown page is intended to help LLMs, browser agents, and AI search tools retrieve the page content without navigation, footer, form, script, or layout clutter.

## Related Pages

- [Contact DMVI](https://www.digitalmediavending.com/contact-us.md)
- [Vending Machine Pricing](https://www.digitalmediavending.com/pricing.md)
- [DMVI Technology](https://www.digitalmediavending.com/technology.md)
- [Custom Vending Machine Design](https://www.digitalmediavending.com/buy-vending-machines-for-sale/custom-vending-machine-design.md)