diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index aa9f02e1a1..dd0b5faa4d 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -2,6 +2,8 @@
 
 # Welcome to aeon
 
+Aeon pre-release: v0.1.0rc0
+
 | Overview      |                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  |
 |---------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 | **CI/CD**     | [![github-actions-main](https://img.shields.io/github/actions/workflow/status/aeon-toolkit/aeon/test.yml?logo=github&branch=main&label=build%20%28main%29)](https://github.com/aeon-toolkit/aeon/actions/workflows/test.yml) [![docs-main](https://img.shields.io/readthedocs/aeon-toolkit/latest?logo=readthedocs&label=docs%20%28latest%29)](https://www.aeon-toolkit.org/en/latest/) [![!codecov](https://img.shields.io/codecov/c/github/aeon-toolkit/aeon?label=codecov&logo=codecov)](https://codecov.io/gh/aeon-toolkit/aeon) |
diff --git a/aeon/__init__.py b/aeon/__init__.py
index c734091c80..924b9f0f90 100644
--- a/aeon/__init__.py
+++ b/aeon/__init__.py
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 """aeon."""
 
-__version__ = "0.16.0"
+__version__ = "0.1.0rc0"
 
 __all__ = ["show_versions"]
 
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 2e3daa34b3..fd59b00628 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [project]
 name = "aeon"
-version = "0.0.1"
+version = "0.1.0rc0"
 description = "A unified framework for machine learning with time series"
 authors = [
     {name = "aeon developers", email = "scikit.time@gmail.com"},