A young scientist and a potential unicorn that’s harnessing organic light

“Confronting challenges is in my blood. I’m an immigrant who arrived here without speaking a word of English". Margaret Kocherga lays out her personal story and her business vision almost simultaneously in front of the jury on Unicorn Hunters, the business series that seeks out future unicorns that will make an impact on the world in the coming years.

Kocherga, who at 25 was studying for a doctorate in nanotechnology, left her native Ukraine to settle in the US. In 2019, she founded Margik, “where I’m CEO but also the inventor of the company’s main product,” she clarifies before going on to impress the Unicorn Hunters with a live demonstration of her lighting technology, which is made from 100% organic materials.

The demonstration is effective: the members of the jury receive in their hands cards made from its lighting products technology, which allows a product to be lit up simply by touching it. The demonstration allows Margaret to explain an interesting branding strategy that could light up all kinds of products, including high-end drinks bottles.The impact of organic light

Presenting to the Circle of Money, Margaret is keen to stress that ubiquitous LED technology (“it’s in our homes, our cell phones, our computers and TVs”) is causing a great deal of harm, both for its direct users and for the environment. Electronic devices that use this technology are responsible for the emission of 2 million tons of CO2, the equivalent of “500,000 running cars”.

Faced with this scenario, Margik’s organic LEDs offer a powerful alternative that could help to reduce polluting emissions by 60% while accelerating the manufacturing of fully organic lighting devices by 80%. The statistics are impressive, but the program has just begun and, as in every episode of Unicorn Hunters, the members of the jury have questions about scalability, forecasts, competition and markets. In other words, does Margik have Unicorn potential?

A unicorn strategy

“We can’t and we don’t want to replace LG and Samsung, the biggest players in this,” Kocherga says in response to a question from Cris Carter, the NFL legend and member of the Hall of Fame who has recently joined the show’s jury. Margik’s CEO is convinced about the position her company will have in the industry and clarifies that it will work in partnership with the sector’s “heavyweights” to develop products in line with demand.

For his part, this episode’s guest “hunter, Jason Felts, a brand strategy advisor and former director general of Virgin Produced and Virgin Fest, wants to know if to gain unicorn status by 2028 Margik has already thought about the big issue of physical production and the manufacturing process.

Margaret (who arrived on the show thanks to a tip from Katie Hotze, who presented her business Grocery Shopii in a previous episode), answers all of the questions about her goal of raising the $3 million that the company needs to scale up.

As well as convincing Carter and Felts, Margik’s founder wants the approval of the rest of the Circle of Money, which comprises the former US treasurer Rosie Ríos, the former White House advisor Moe Vela, the social entrepreneur and star of HBO’s Silicon Valley, Chris Diamantopoulos, Unicorn Hunters CEO Alex Konanykhin and the entrepreneur Silvina Moschini, co-founder and president of Unicoin.

The magic “yes”

An investment commitment from the Circle of Money could grant Margaret Kocherga up to ten million unicoins if every member of the jury gives her company a “yes”. Unicoin, the show’s official cryptocurrency, is a latest generation currency designed to resolve the issue of the extreme volatility associated with traditional tokens.