Saffire was founded by Leslie W. ("Les") Pardew with assistance by Charles Moore in 1993. The team initially consisted of six people working from Pardew's basement in Orem, Utah, and expanded to fourteen when it was incorporated in November 1993. The company was named Cygnus Multimedia Productions, taking the name from mythological king Cycnus of Liguria "because it sounded cool" and started out by creating artwork for video games of other developers.
In 1994, Pardew bought out Moore's stake in the company and brought on Hal Rushton, the former "vice president of product development" for Sculptured Software, as a partner. Rushton became the company's general manager, with Pardew as the president. By February 1995, Cygnus employed 50 people in a bottom-floor office in Pleasant Grove; the office was small, wherefore staff worked in shifts, and frequently flooded during rainfall. Cygnus changed its name to Saffire in October 1995 and moved to a new studio in the Utah Valley Business Park in American Fork later that year. The move allowed Saffire to engage in the full production of video games, which Pardew sought to fasten with continued expansion. To raise capital, Pardew borrowed US$200,000 from Utah Technology Finance Corp. (UTFC) in September 1996 and further $125,000 in March 1997.
