Naturals Ice Cream founder Raghunandan Kamath died on Friday night after a brief illness, his company said in an online post on Friday.

"Our thoughts on the sad demise of our patron and founder of Naturals Ice Cream, Late (Shri) Raghunandan Kamath. Indeed a very sad and unfortunate day for us," the company said.

Kamath grew up helping his father to sell mangoes in a village in Karnataka's Mangaluru.

This was when he learned the art of picking the ripe fruit, plucking it, sorting it, and preserving it.

At 14, he left his studies and joined his brother's eatery with a dream of creating handcrafted ice cream filled with real fruit pulp.

He moved to Mumbai in 1984 and opened the first ice cream parlour with just six staff members and 12 flavours in the suburbs of Juhu scheme.

As the demand kept growing, he opened five more outlets in 1994. Currently, it has over 165 outlets across 15 cities.

Inspired by his mother's techniques, Kamath also developed innovative machines to streamline production and ensure consistency, notes the company website.