An Indian-origin entrepreneur in the US has shared how she built a multi-million-dollar ice cream business inspired by Indian flavours despite having no prior experience in the food industry.
Pooja Bavishi, 42, is the founder and CEO of New York-based ice cream brand Malai, which she founded in 2015. According to CNBC Make It, her company generated $2.8 million in sales in 2025 and turned profitable after years of expansion and experimentation. Today, Malai has four physical stores across New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC, along with wholesale and e-commerce operations. The company is known for using Indian-inspired flavours like cardamom, saffron, rose and nutmeg in its ice creams.
“Malai is so different because we go beyond chocolate and vanilla,” Bavishi told CNBC Make It. “We introduce flavours like cardamom, rose, saffron, (and) nutmeg into ice cream — flavours that are so ubiquitous to so many people around the country and the world that we want to mainstream into American flavours.”
Bavishi said she had always dreamed of building a business around desserts but only started pursuing it later in life. Before launching Malai, she studied urban planning at The London School of Economics and worked as a civil rights project coordinator at a nonprofit organisation in Washington DC.
She said that the idea for the company came during a dinner party in 2014 while she was pursuing an MBA at New York University. She made homemade ice cream using ginger and star anise, and the response from friends encouraged her to explore the concept further.
“I just remember my friends being like, ‘We’ve never had anything like this before,’” she said.
Home kitchen and pop-ups before opening store
Bavishi started small by making ice cream in her own kitchen and selling it at outdoor markets across New York City. She said she relied on friends to help sell scoops from a camping freezer and collect customer feedback.
“I needed to make sure that there was a market for my products and that my idea actually made sense,” she said. “I would test different (flavours). I needed to know exactly who my customer was, what they were looking to buy, what their buying behaviour is and who I’m catering to. If I didn’t have that information, I had no viable business,” she added.
The 42-year-old shared that one turning point came when a food writer from The New York Times tried her ice cream and featured Malai in an article in 2015. Bavishi said that the coverage boosted online orders for ice cream pints and frozen desserts, which she packed and shipped herself.
To grow the business, she said that she used credit cards to pay for ingredients and commercial kitchen space. She later raised a small “friends and family” investment round in 2017 to launch pop-ups and temporary food stalls across New York.
Bhavish said that for opening Malai’s first permanent store in Brooklyn, she had to take on nearly $200,000 in credit card debt. She said it took almost 2 years to repay the amount.
Over time, the company expanded steadily. Bavishi said that about 80% of Malai’s current revenue comes from its physical stores, all of which are individually profitable.
She added that the company has raised $1.8 million in total outside funding, much of which has funded new store openings and increased production. She remains the company’s majority owner, she said.
Talking about the future, Bavishi said that she now plans to expand Malai’s wholesale presence across grocery stores and retailers in the US.
“Indian flavours are not experimental. These flavours have been enjoyed by billions of people all over the world on a daily basis for generations… So, the fact that we’re introducing it to the mainstream American market, and the fact that we’re a leader in that, actually makes me so proud,” Bhavish said.
