Is Pit Viper a Utah company, and where are the sunglasses made

The registered business is Pit Viper LLC, and its contact page lists the Haven Avenue address in South Salt Lake. When Utah Business photographed the team in 2025, a caption called the place the "South Salt Lake Global Headquarters" and, a few words later, "The Pit Viper Money Factory." The magazine reports that the founders took a warehouse in South Salt Lake as their base of operations and as storage for product.

The Tribune and Wired⁸ both describe it as a Salt Lake City company, which is close enough for anyone who isn't mailing it a letter. In our directory it sits in the Salt Lake Valley with the other brands in the valley.

You can't walk in and buy a pair there. When the Salt Lake Tribune visited in 2023, it noted that the headquarters has no storefront. Pit Viper's FAQ points shoppers to a dealer locator, and the Tribune named Zumiez and Scheels among the stores that carry them.

Pit Viper does not say. Its about page promises "sun & wind buckability" and says nothing about a factory, and its FAQ doesn't either. The clearest public answer comes from Revant Optics, a company that makes replacement lenses for Pit Vipers. Its FAQ says the glasses are "designed in the U.S. Utah, but manufactured primarily in China." That is a retailer's statement, not the brand's, so read it that way.

For the first stretch, Pit Viper didn't manufacture anything. The early pairs were dead stock military surplus ballistic sunglasses that Mumford painted neon. Utah Business³ says the founders bought and painted about 10,000 more surplus pairs, until the wholesaler told them, "You guys bought us out." A 2014 Kickstarter raised $38,649 from 508 backers, and the magazine says that is when Pit Viper began manufacturing its own frames.

So Pit Viper belongs on the founded in Utah and headquartered in Utah lists. It is not on the made in Utah list, which only includes brands that build their products here.

The warranty is worth a look before you put a pair through a season. Pit Viper's warranty page now calls it a "Limited Lifetime Manufacturing Defects Warranty." It covers defects in materials or workmanship. Accidental damage and normal wear are excluded.

Chuck Mumford started it while he was working at a ski shop in Salt Lake City, Wired reports. He painted surplus ballistic frames in loud pinks and greens and traded them for rides to ski resorts, according to Utah Business. The name came from skiing. "We'd hit jumps and it would be like 'pit viper style,'" Mumford told the magazine.

Mumford was spray painting sunglasses in Chris Garcin's garage one day when Garcin, a college classmate, made his pitch: "Dude, I know how to build a website." Wikipedia says Garcin first teamed up with Mumford to make stickers for the glasses. Garcin later quit his job, and a few months after that he sold his house.

The bet paid off in volume. Garcin told Utah Business in 2025 that the company sells nearly 500,000 pairs a year. The Tribune counted about 90 employees in 2023. The people wearing them range from extreme skier Glen Plake to Patrick Mahomes, according to Wikipedia.

Pit Viper is independent and privately held. Wikipedia lists it as a private company, and it has no parent company. Because it is private, it publishes no annual report, so its numbers come from interviews and estimates. Wikipedia puts its 2023 revenue at around $40 million, an estimate rather than a reported figure.

Mumford and Garcin are the co-founders. In 2023 the Tribune also named Dave Bottomley as the company's president.

For more Utah addresses that surprise people, see outdoor brands you didn't know were from Utah. Goggle makers and other snow gear brands in the directory are under ski and snow.