Rocket Mortgage Gilbert founded Rock Financial in 1985 with Ron Berman, Lindsay Gross and his younger brother
Gary Gilbert. In the late 1990s, the company launched its internet strategy, becoming an early online direct mortgage lender. In the fourth quarter of 2017, the company became the largest retail mortgage lender by volume in the United States. In 2000, software maker
Intuit Inc. purchased Rock Financial and renamed the national web operation
Quicken Loans. In 2002, Gilbert and a group of private investors purchased Quicken Loans and its affiliated national title company, Title Source, Inc., from Intuit. As of 2021, Gilbert was the chairman of Quicken Loans, Inc. In 2007, Gilbert and the city of Detroit announced an agreement to move the company's headquarters to downtown Detroit. All 3,600 Michigan-based employees moved into Detroit's urban core by the end of 2010. In August 2020, Quicken Loans went public under the name
Rocket Companies and made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "RKT". As of 2020, Gilbert remained the majority owner, controlling 79% of the company's shares. Since then, he has overseen significant improvements to the team's facilities. In 2006, Gilbert also purchased the Cleveland Monsters, a professional ice hockey team in the
American Hockey League. The team is affiliated with the
NHL's
Columbus Blue Jackets. Gilbert has been an active and vocal owner, often speaking out on social media and in public about his teams and the NBA. He has also been involved in efforts to bring major sporting events to Cleveland, including the
NBA All-Star Game and the
NFL draft. Gilbert's ownership of the Cavaliers has been marked by both success and controversy. The team won its first NBA championship in 2016, but also went through a tumultuous period after LeBron James left in 2018. Additionally, Gilbert has faced criticism for his treatment of former head coach
David Blatt. Overall, however, Dan Gilbert's ownership of the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Cleveland Monsters has been a significant part of his business and investment portfolio, and he remains a prominent figure in both the NBA and the city of Cleveland.
Other businesses and investments Gilbert is a founding partner in the private equity group Rockbridge Growth Equity LLC (RBE). The partnership invests in growing businesses in the financial services, Internet technology, consumer-direct marketing, and the sports and entertainment industries. RBE has significant investments in Gas Station TV,
Robb Report, and
RapidAdvance, among other ventures. Gilbert is also an investor in Courtside Ventures, a venture capital fund investing across early-stage technology and media companies with a focus on sports and is a founding partner of Detroit Venture Partners (DVP), a venture capital firm that funds start-up and early-stage technology companies based primarily in
Detroit.[23] Some of the companies DVP has invested in includes CoverTree, Rivet and InvestNext. Gilbert cofounded
StockX, a stock market for high-demand, limited edition products such as sneakers. Gilbert is also invested and involved in the operation of several consumer-based technology-centered businesses, including
Fathead, Veritix, Xenith,
StyleCaster, and
Quizzle. Gilbert launched nonprofit Bizdom in 2007, which promotes both tech and brick-and-mortar entrepreneurship in Detroit and Cleveland by supporting on-the-ground service providers. In November 2009, Gilbert and a group of partners successfully backed a statewide referendum to bring
casino gaming to
Ohio's four largest cities. Through a joint venture with
Caesars Entertainment, the groups operate urban-based casinos in
Cleveland and
Cincinnati. The first of the casinos,
Jack Cleveland Casino, opened in May 2012. In 2013, Rock Ventures, the umbrella entity for Gilbert's investments and real estate holdings, announced it had formed Athens Acquisition LLC, an affiliate of Rock Gaming, and acquired the majority interest in Greektown Superholdings Inc., owner of the Greektown Casino-Hotel located in downtown Detroit. In 2019, Dan Gilbert sold the Greektown Casino to
Vici Properties. In late 2018, Gilbert bought the online dictionaries
Dictionary.com and
Thesaurus.com, both of which were later sold to IXL Learning. In November 2017, former professional
Call of Duty player and
100 Thieves CEO
Matthew "Nadeshot" Haag announced that Gilbert had made a multimillion-dollar investment into the
esports organization.
City initiatives Detroit Quicken Loans, which changed its name to Rocket Mortgage, moved its headquarters and 1,700 of its employees to downtown
Detroit in August 2010, where Gilbert and the company are helping lead a revitalization of Detroit's urban core. His initiative has led others, such as
Ford Motor Company to invest millions into the city. development Gilbert's real estate company
Bedrock Detroit was founded in 2011 and has purchased several buildings in downtown
Detroit, including the historic Madison Theatre Building,
Chase Tower, Two Detroit Center,
Dime Building, the
First National Building, the
David Stott Building, and the former Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Detroit Branch Building. Bedrock Detroit has also purchased several buildings on the city's Woodward Avenue, including
One Woodward Avenue and the 1001 Woodward office tower. Gilbert often paid cash for the buildings, since lenders would not finance the transactions. He led Bedrock Detroit to acquire a total of 140 properties and 21 million square feet of space. By 2026, Bedrock has invested $7.5 billion into Downtown Detroit. In September 2013, Gilbert was named co-chair of the
Blight Removal Task Force. The group published a detailed plan in May 2014 to remove all blighted structures and lots in the City of Detroit. His work on the blight removal task force led him to make a $500 million donation to assist low income residents and local organizations in Detroit. The first $15 million went towards eliminating property tax debt from 20,000 low-income homeowners. In 2015, he purchased
Book Tower in Detroit for the price of $30 million. Over the course of the next seven years, Book Tower was transformed into a mixed-used building containing 229 rental apartments, a 117-room ROOST apartment hotel, commercial offices, and event space, with retail, bars and restaurants at ground level, with a grand reopening in 2022. A 2017 Politico Magazine article named Gilbert one of "America's 11 Most Interesting Mayors", listing him as though he were Mayor of Detroit due to his role in the city's development. In September 2017, Detroit Mayor
Mike Duggan appointed Gilbert to lead a committee to make a bid for online retail giant
Amazon to bring its second North American headquarters to Detroit. In 2018, Amazon narrowed its list of potential headquarters locations, removing Detroit from its list of contenders. Gilbert's
Hudson's Detroit, a 1.5 million square foot project opened in 2025 and includes an office building, which will be the headquarters of
General Motors, a 681-foot skyscraper, as well as a hotel, retails stores, restaurants, and luxury apartments.
Cleveland Gilbert's real estate firm, Bedrock, introduced a $3.5 billion plan to renovate 35 acres of Cleveland's Riverfront and renovations to
Tower City Center. The plan includes the development of the Cleveland Clinic Global Peak Performance Center, in partnership with the Cleveland Cavaliers and
Cleveland Clinic. == Philanthropy and political donations ==