PygmalionAI was originally a small project ran by two guys, 0x000011b and TearGosling, that wanted to build open-source models inspired from the Character.AI model back in late 2022. You may be aware of us from our old popular Pygmalion-6B model. Alpin started working with the founders start of 2023 and was an early contributor to anything we did.

Around mid-2023, one of the original founders (0x000011b) decided to leave the project and we haven't seen him since. In June, when the project was close to be hired by other AI companies, Tav got involved and started handling business meetings. We concluded that it was best for us to start our own platform rather than working under a company.

In July, we officially incorporated PygmalionAI as a company and started working on projects passionately. Alpin handled all matters related to the inference which created the Aphrodite-engine project, TearGosling for models and the Pygmalion model series, and Tav undertook the development and management of our first platform, named Galatea internally, to fulfil the original promise of us making a site for people to interact with our models.

Yes, the naming scheme was intentional.

Rest of 2023 was us considering if we should get outside investments to accelerate our projects, however upon several meetings with various investors, we decided none of them shared the same passion or vision. We decided to go with a bootstrapped approach.

At the start of 2024, Tav decided to fully commit to funding the development of the site himself and the rest of 2024 was spent working quietly on the engine, models and the site, keeping our public presence rather minimum. Other founders started contributing financially near the end of 2024.

In January 2025, after a lengthy open beta development cycle for the site. The site was completed, and it is where we are currently now.