diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 2834096b7..0f5c31ca6 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -1,7 +1,17 @@
 SHELL := /bin/bash
 sha = $(shell "git" "rev-parse" "--short" "HEAD")
+version = $(shell "bin/get-version.sh")
+wheel = spacy-$(version)-cp36-cp36m-linux_x86_64.whl
 
-dist/spacy.pex : spacy/*.py* spacy/*/*.py*
+dist/spacy.pex : dist/spacy-$(sha).pex
+	cp dist/spacy-$(sha).pex dist/spacy.pex
+	chmod a+rx dist/spacy.pex
+
+dist/spacy-$(sha).pex : dist/$(wheel)
+	env3.6/bin/python -m pip install pex==1.5.3
+	env3.6/bin/pex pytest dist/$(wheel) -e spacy -o dist/spacy-$(sha).pex
+
+dist/$(wheel) : setup.py spacy/*.py* spacy/*/*.py*
 	python3.6 -m venv env3.6
 	source env3.6/bin/activate
 	env3.6/bin/pip install wheel
@@ -9,10 +19,6 @@ dist/spacy.pex : spacy/*.py* spacy/*/*.py*
 	env3.6/bin/python setup.py build_ext --inplace
 	env3.6/bin/python setup.py sdist
 	env3.6/bin/python setup.py bdist_wheel
-	env3.6/bin/python -m pip install pex==1.5.3
-	env3.6/bin/pex pytest dist/*.whl -e spacy -o dist/spacy-$(sha).pex
-	cp dist/spacy-$(sha).pex dist/spacy.pex
-	chmod a+rx dist/spacy.pex
 
 .PHONY : clean
 
diff --git a/bin/get-version.sh b/bin/get-version.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..5a12ddd7a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/bin/get-version.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+
+set -e
+
+version=$(grep "__version__ = " spacy/about.py)
+version=${version/__version__ = }
+version=${version/\'/}
+version=${version/\'/}
+version=${version/\"/}
+version=${version/\"/}
+
+echo $version
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index a6d721e96..865288a86 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 # Our libraries
 cymem>=2.0.2,<2.1.0
 preshed>=2.0.1,<2.1.0
-thinc>=7.0.8,<7.1.0
-blis>=0.2.2,<0.3.0
+thinc>=7.1.0,<7.2.0
+blis>=0.4.0,<0.5.0
 murmurhash>=0.28.0,<1.1.0
 wasabi>=0.2.0,<1.1.0
 srsly>=0.1.0,<1.1.0
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 828e919e1..29bdb96fa 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -248,8 +248,8 @@ def setup_package():
                 "murmurhash>=0.28.0,<1.1.0",
                 "cymem>=2.0.2,<2.1.0",
                 "preshed>=2.0.1,<2.1.0",
-                "thinc>=7.0.8,<7.1.0",
-                "blis>=0.2.2,<0.3.0",
+                "thinc>=7.1.0,<7.2.0",
+                "blis>=0.4.0,<0.5.0",
                 "plac<1.0.0,>=0.9.6",
                 "requests>=2.13.0,<3.0.0",
                 "wasabi>=0.2.0,<1.1.0",
diff --git a/spacy/about.py b/spacy/about.py
index 9587c9071..bd500ed6c 100644
--- a/spacy/about.py
+++ b/spacy/about.py
@@ -4,13 +4,13 @@
 # fmt: off
 
 __title__ = "spacy"
-__version__ = "2.1.8"
+__version__ = "2.2.0.dev0"
 __summary__ = "Industrial-strength Natural Language Processing (NLP) with Python and Cython"
 __uri__ = "https://spacy.io"
 __author__ = "Explosion AI"
 __email__ = "contact@explosion.ai"
 __license__ = "MIT"
-__release__ = True
+__release__ = False
 
 __download_url__ = "https://github.com/explosion/spacy-models/releases/download"
 __compatibility__ = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/explosion/spacy-models/master/compatibility.json"