diff --git a/.bumpversion.cfg b/.bumpversion.cfg
index b0798009..cf4d1124 100644
--- a/.bumpversion.cfg
+++ b/.bumpversion.cfg
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 [bumpversion]
-current_version = 5.3.7
+current_version = 5.4.0rc1
 commit = True
 tag = True
 parse = (?P<major>\d+)\.(?P<minor>\d+)\.(?P<patch>\d+)(?P<releaselevel>[a-z]+)?
diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index a50ba759..caccd709 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 
 |build-status| |coverage| |license| |wheel| |pyversion| |pyimp| |downloads|
 
-:Version: 5.3.7
+:Version: 5.4.0rc
 :Documentation: https://kombu.readthedocs.io/
 :Download: https://pypi.org/project/kombu/
 :Source: https://github.com/celery/kombu/
diff --git a/docs/includes/introduction.txt b/docs/includes/introduction.txt
index 8296eef4..273082b0 100644
--- a/docs/includes/introduction.txt
+++ b/docs/includes/introduction.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-:Version: 5.3.7
+:Version: 5.4.0rc
 :Web: https://kombu.readthedocs.io/
 :Download: https://pypi.org/project/kombu/
 :Source: https://github.com/celery/kombu/
diff --git a/kombu/__init__.py b/kombu/__init__.py
index bcc1c01a..2449d3f0 100644
--- a/kombu/__init__.py
+++ b/kombu/__init__.py
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ import sys
 from collections import namedtuple
 from typing import Any, cast
 
-__version__ = '5.3.7'
+__version__ = '5.4.0rc'
 __author__ = 'Ask Solem'
 __contact__ = 'auvipy@gmail.com'
 __homepage__ = 'https://kombu.readthedocs.io'