A Thinking Ape’s Eric Diep: ‘We Want to Build the Most Respected Tech Company in Canada’

A Thinking Ape, a startup that moved from Silicon Valley to Vancouver in January 2011, wants more than just money. The now-Canadian startup, which was founded in 2008, wants respect. A lot of it.

“We want to build the most respected technology company in Canada,” 24-year-old Eric Diep, a co-founder and University of Waterloo dropout, told The Globe and Mail. In a 10,000-square-foot Gastown office, A Thinking Ape is “creating the future of social gaming experiences online.”

One way A Thinking Ape gained respect was through dedicating the proceeds of virtual goods in their popular Kingdoms at War game to the humanitarian efforts of the Red Cross in Japan last April. They managed to donate more than $50,000 to the cause.

Of course, money still matters. But A Thinking Ape has that too: they made the top Canadian iPhone app of 2011, Kingdoms at War, which generated up to $20 million last year. And they were able to acquire Good Guy Robots, an independent gaming studio also based in Vancouver.