Lion Forge Entertainment, a related company to Oni Press and Magnetic Press, has received a $30 million investment. HarbourView Equity Partners leads it along with The Steward Family and Polarity. David Stewart II is the Founder and CEO of the company. Steward’s family and investment firm Polarity remain the majority owners of Lion Forge.

Lion Forge has found success lately with the Oscar-winning 2019 short film Hair Love and Iyanu, an animated series on HBO Max/Cartoon Network based on a graphic novel series published originally independently and now by Dark Horse.

HarbourView Equity Partners has a goal of investing in media focused on underrepresented audiences. HarbourView has invested a lot in music and film and has acquired 70 music catalogs featuring more than 35,000 songs.

Lion Forge has a first-look deal with Paramount’s Nickelodeon. Paramount’s new owner Skydance and billionaire Larry Ellison is currently thinking of purchasing Warner Bros. Discovery, the owner of DC Comics.

Lion Forge Entertainment is one of the few large scale Black-owned entertainment studios in North America and was founded in 2019. Magnetic Press became a part of the entertainment company in October 2016 while Oni Press was acquired in 2019 and merged with Lion Forge Comics with Polarity, the parent company, officially launched in May 2019. Lion Forge Comics was founded in 2011 with licensed properties from NBCUniversal and American Greetings and in 2014 it was announced it would be published and distributed by IDW Publishing. For a bit, it also owned comic news site Comics Beat.

(via Variety and Hollywood Reporter)