The Founder Who Took a Small Gaming Company From Tbilisi to a Global Stage

By Exec Edge Editorial Staff

At a ceremony at Cinecittà Studios in Rome, David Natroshvili was inducted into the SiGMA Hall of Game. The organizers described the SPRIBE founder and CEO as a Georgia-born entrepreneur and recognized more than 25 years of work across public administration and business.

The company he started in 2018 now works with more than 6,000 operator partners and reaches more than 77 million monthly active players, according to SPRIBE. The path between those two points began in Tbilisi.

Public service before product

Natroshvili was born in Tbilisi, according to a profile of Natroshvili in The Principal Post. He earned a Master of Public Administration from the Georgian-American Institute of Public Administration in Tbilisi and an MBA from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. His early career included a role at a U.S.-based Fortune 500 company before he returned to Georgia, where he held senior government positions, including First Deputy Minister of Economic Development in the mid-2000s and, later, Deputy Minister of Agriculture.

That background gave him experience with something that would later define SPRIBE’s operating environment. The company now holds licenses across more than 60 regulated markets, according to SPRIBE, and Natroshvili has described uneven regulation across those markets as the industry’s main challenge, one that “requires agility, discipline, and a lot of forward planning.”

Starting SPRIBE

Natroshvili founded SPRIBE in 2018. A year later, the company released Aviator, a multiplayer title built around real-time decisions and in-game social interaction. In an interview with the San Francisco Examiner on the genesis of SPRIBE, he said he “felt that traditional gaming had become stale,” and acknowledged that “initially, many operators were hesitant to adopt something so different.”

The format went on to define a category. SPRIBE reports that it now holds more than 90% of the crash game market, and the company has added a portfolio of short-format titles and a full operator platform, Broadway, around its original product.

From a small team to five countries

The growth since then can be traced through the company’s reported figures. When the San Francisco Examiner profiled SPRIBE, it cited more than 43 million monthly active players and a team of more than 270 people. SPRIBE now reports more than 77 million monthly active players and operates from offices in Warsaw, Kyiv, Tallinn, Tbilisi and the Isle of Man.

Partnerships followed the same trajectory. SPRIBE became an official UFC partner in 2023 and has since worked with WWE and AC Milan. The company reports that a single year of its UFC and WWE campaign reached a combined global audience of 601.8 million.

A different kind of leadership

Natroshvili says his own role has changed as the company has grown. “In the early days, I tried to be involved in everything. Today, I focus on direction and people,” he said. “The stronger the team, the lighter the founder’s touch should be. Leadership becomes less about control and more about creating the right environment for others to excel.”

The Hall of Game was not the only recognition tied to that leadership. SPRIBE also received the Outstanding Leadership award at SiGMA Asia in Manila, one of a run of industry awards the company has won.

SPRIBE still keeps an office in Tbilisi, the city where Natroshvili was born. From there and four other locations, the company now serves operators across more than 60 regulated markets. The recognition in Rome reflects a career that started in public service and moved into one of the most competitive segments of digital entertainment.