Digging deep into the capital game of Rollman Management: Hanging the VC signboard while selling marketing dog meat.

The primary investment market is cooling off, and VCs relying on “investment commitments” to pump garbage projects are making a comeback.

Written by: Nianqing, ChainCatcher

Yesterday, the Web3 social media platform Wunder.Social announced the completion of a $50 million financing round, led by Rollman Management. The news comes from CoinDesk, which also mentioned that Wunder.Social plans to launch its token later this month. Against the backdrop of a continued slump in the primary market, this large financing is quite eye-catching, especially since both the project team and the venture capital firm are relatively unknown, further deepening concerns about the authenticity of the financing.

Rollman Management is not new to the media. This institution, established in 2022, began to make frequent moves only at the end of 2024. In less than 5 months, Rollman Management has invested in 11 crypto projects, with investment amounts mostly exceeding 20 million. The total investment amount exceeds 200 million dollars.

At the same time, the portfolio projects of Rollman Management are relatively unknown, with most of the projects based in Europe, Australia, and other regions. The only notable financing history is the significant funding from Rollman. In the final press release regarding the financing, most of these projects are about to undergo IDO or token sales. Additionally, Rollman Management has almost always made investments independently, without collaborating with well-known venture capital firms.

Business Involvement is Wide-ranging

According to the official website, Rollman Management Digital is a global investment network and consulting company that provides services in mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, real estate, and digital assets for family offices, high-net-worth individuals, and entrepreneurs. It is described that Rollman’s business is very broad, offering strategic planning consulting, investment and trading, marketing, tailored banking consulting solutions, and institutional-level Web3 services.

Among them, the institutional-level Web3 services cover almost everything—ranging from over-the-counter trading (OTC), banking services, hedge funds, venture capital, marketing, cryptocurrency / artificial intelligence mining, financing, issuance platforms, market makers, liquidity providers, decentralized exchanges (DEX), and centralized exchanges (CEX) providing comprehensive solutions. Rollman Management also offers marketing strategies for projects to help enhance their visibility and promote customer engagement.

Portfolio and Style Analysis

According to data from RootData and Cryptorank, Rollman Management currently has a portfolio of 11 investments, as shown in the figure:

“Investment Commitment” is a term that needs to be approached with caution. Literally, it refers to the commitment made by the project party to invest a specific amount into the project. However, there is a significant amount of manipulation potential behind it.

Previously, ChainCatcher had picked up GEM Digital, a venture capital firm with a similar investment style to Rollman Management. A project leader once said that GEM Digital had contacted the project by email and promised to invest $50 million, but when signing the investment contract, the project party found that GEM would not make direct payments in the contract, but would use the profits to fill the investment funds after selling the tokens.

Related reading: The most “lavish” cryptocurrency venture capital firm GEM Digital: A covert and bizarre game of capital.

Rollman Management’s “investment commitment” may differ from GEM Digital, but its investment style is generally similar to GEM’s:

1. High-frequency, large-scale “investment commitments”: Rollman Management’s investments are relatively diversified, covering social, RWA, AI, and infrastructure, as well as DeFi sectors, with a median investment amount of 20 million USD. Among them, nearly half of the invested projects, such as VitalVeda, Tea-Fi, and Candao, are investment commitments rather than normal investments.

2. Choose low-profile projects: Among the 11 projects invested by Rollman, only Elastos and Yilaiyun were founded earlier and have some recognition and dynamics in Chinese-speaking regions because they are Chinese-founded projects; the other projects have had almost no news updates previously, and the projects that have been released are hardly listed on mainstream exchanges.

3. Use media to create momentum: Investment news related to Rollman Management is mostly published on mainstream platforms such as Cointelegraph and CoinDesk. The vast majority of it is published on Cointelegraph (with the label “sponsored” in the press releases), and it almost follows a template for financing news, with a highly similar article structure, clearly originating from Rollman. (You can click here on the project names to experience: AstraAI, Tea-Fi, Eventflo)

The purpose of Rollman’s investment news is singular—to promote token sales for projects. Rollman has leveraged the crypto community’s sensitivity to financing news. By disseminating “huge investment” news through authoritative media, it attracts market attention and even drives up token prices. Of course, even if a project has not issued tokens, there are plans for token sales such as IDO.

4. The tokens of the invested projects exhibit a “pump and dump” pattern: The token prices of projects invested by Rollman have shown a trend of rapidly increasing after the news release, followed by a decline. For example, on November 21, 2024, the news release of Rollman’s investment in AstraAI saw its token price rise from $7.7 to a peak of $25, and its current token price is $4.

On January 30 this year, Rollman announced an investment in Elastos, and the Elastos token also experienced a rapid increase, rising from $13 to $21.

Hang VC sheep’s head and sell marketing dog meat

Overall, Rollman is more like a conservative version of GEM Digital, as the projects it collaborates with are mostly those that have not yet issued tokens. Therefore, compared to GEM Digital’s model of relying on positive news to pump, Rollman is essentially promoting tokens for project parties through investment activities.

“Pump and Dump” was particularly common in the early days of cryptocurrency, especially during the ICO boom, when many projects attracted funds through false advertising and exaggerated financing news, only to run away or collapse afterward. The practices of institutions like Rollman and GEM Digital can be seen as an “upgraded version” of this strategy, donning a legitimate guise through “investment commitments” and utilizing media and low-profile projects to achieve systematic operations.

The current cryptocurrency market is weak, and in the cold environment of the primary market, the survival of projects has become more difficult, especially for those without much background or fame. Therefore, where there is demand, there is a market, and coupled with the incomplete regulations, especially the vague definitions and constraints on behaviors such as “investment commitments,” this provides operational space for institutions like Rollman.

ChainCatcher reminds industry participants (including investors, project parties, media, and retail investors) to remain vigilant about such investments and avoid becoming victims of capital games.