WOW STORY OF THE DAY: He Scaled His Family's 50-Year Ice Cream Business to 100 Stores and Then Built Go Zero.

Apsara, 50 Years of Ice Cream Knowledge, and One Mission

1. Kiran Shah comes from a family that has run Apsara Ice Creams since 1971. When he joined the business in 2014, Apsara was a beloved single-store operation. Over eight years, he scaled it to 100-plus outlets entirely through operational discipline and product quality, with no investor backing. That journey gave him the complete ice cream industry playbook: supply chain, manufacturing, consumer behaviour, distribution economics, and flavour science.
2. He watched India's health consciousness accelerate. He watched the diabetes crisis deepen. With approximately 280 million Indians either diabetic or pre-diabetic, India has become the diabetes capital of the world. But Indians were not stopping eating desserts. The demand for indulgent yet health-conscious alternatives was growing every year, and no brand had built a genuinely premium, genuinely delicious answer to it.
3. In July 2022, Kiran founded Go Zero under SKKY DESSERTS PRIVATE LIMITED, headquartered in Andheri East, Mumbai. The mission was precise: build the best-tasting guilt-free ice cream in India, backed by the deepest industry expertise any founder had ever brought to the category.
4. "I started Go Zero with a simple mission: to make ice creams and desserts healthier and guilt-free for all. The growth that we have seen in the past 12 months has been phenomenal and proves that there is a strong demand for better-for-you ice creams that taste really good," Kiran says.

Quick Commerce First, Plant-Based Sweeteners, and a Shark Tank Pitch That Turned Heads

1. Go Zero's product architecture is built on three non-negotiable principles: 100% sugar-free formulations, 50% fewer calories than traditional ice creams, and plant-based sweeteners that deliver genuine taste rather than compromise. The diversified portfolio spans low-calorie, high-protein, and vegan ice creams across cups, bars, and cones, addressing every health-conscious consumer segment simultaneously.
2. The boldest distribution decision Kiran made was to build Go Zero as a quick commerce-first brand. By putting Go Zero on Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, and Zepto before establishing a significant offline presence, he placed the product exactly where India's impulse purchase behaviour was migrating fastest.
3. The results validated the strategy immediately. In FY23-24, Go Zero grew 4X compared to FY22-23. In just five months from January to May 2024, quick commerce sales grew 7X. By January 2025, typically an off-season for ice cream, Go Zero recorded its highest-ever monthly sales, surpassing ₹5 crore in a single month. Go Zero became one of the top five most searched ice cream brands in India.

The Shark Tank Moment and the Funding Journey

1. Kiran Shah appeared on Shark Tank India seeking ₹1 crore for 1% equity at a ₹100 crore valuation. He presented a brand with net revenue growing from ₹2.5 crore in FY22-23 to ₹11.1 crore in FY23-24, with an ambitious ₹33 crore projection for FY24-25. His transparency about previously raising two rounds, ₹8.5 crore in January 2023 at a ₹25 crore valuation and ₹12 crore in 2024, generated sharp debate among the Sharks. He secured the investment, with Aman Gupta investing through Shark Tank India.
2. The full funding journey spans four rounds: seed round March 2023, followed by pre-Series A rounds, and culminating in the ₹30 crore Series A in March 2025 from DSG Consumer Partners, Saama Capital, and V3 Ventures, with Aman Gupta through Shark Tank India and Namita Thapar outside the tank as additional investors. Total funding raised stands at $6.02 million across four rounds from 15 investors.
3. The capital is being deployed to expand the supply chain, enhance product innovation, drive brand growth through quick commerce, and seek a third contract manufacturer in Delhi NCR to meet scaling production demands.

Scale and Real-World Impact

1. Go Zero was founded in July 2022 and is headquartered at Andheri East, Mumbai, under SKKY DESSERTS PRIVATE LIMITED. Annual revenue reached ₹42.7 crore for FY25 as of March 31, 2025. The brand achieved 5X revenue growth in its second year and 3X in its third. It operates across 16 cities with 125-plus dark stores and is available on Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, Swiggy, and Zomato. The brand is targeting ₹10 crore in monthly sales and is working toward CM2 positivity and EBITDA break-even. New categories in development include sugar-free shakes and desserts.
2. India's ice cream market is valued at ₹20,000 crore with 65% organised players, expected to double by 2026 and quadruple to $5.1 billion by 2039 at a 15% CAGR. The better-for-you ice cream market is projected to reach $500 million by 2030. Go Zero competes with NOTO, Get-A-Way, and Minus 30.

The Most Credible Disruptors Are the Ones Who Know the Industry They Are Disrupting From the Inside

1. The sharpest lesson from Go Zero's journey is this: the founders who have spent years inside the categories they later disrupt arrive with an unfair advantage that no amount of external market research can replicate.
2. Kiran Shah spent eight years scaling Apsara Ice Creams to 100-plus outlets without investor capital. He mastered supply chain, flavour science, distribution, and consumer behaviour at the operational level. When he decided to build Go Zero, he was not guessing at solutions. He was building them with the precision of someone who had seen every problem firsthand.
3. "The demand for 'better-for-you' products is no longer niche. It's a mainstream shift. This funding will accelerate our mission to bring healthier indulgence to more households across India," Kiran says.
4. He ran his family's ice cream business for eight years. He scaled one store to one hundred. And then he built something better, for the 280 million Indians who love desserts and deserve one that loves them back.

Source: DSG Consumer Partners, Restaurant India, Tracxn, Entrepreneur India, Inc42, Indian Startup News, Entrackr, MyBigPlunge