Deep Dive into Rollman Management's Capital Game: Hanging the VC Signboard, Selling Marketing Dog Meat
The primary investment market has cooled down, and VCs are making a comeback by using "investment commitments" to boost garbage projects.Author: 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 persistently sluggish primary market, this large financing amount stands out, and the relative obscurity of both the project and the venture capital firm further deepens doubts about the authenticity of the financing.
Rollman Management is not new to the media. Founded in 2022, this firm has only started making frequent investments since the end of 2024, having invested in 11 crypto projects in less than five months, with most investments exceeding $20 million. The total investment amount has surpassed $200 million.
At the same time, the projects in Rollman Management's portfolio are relatively unknown, primarily located in Europe, Australia, and other regions, with the only notable financing being this abrupt large investment from Rollman. In the press release about the financing, most of these projects are about to conduct IDOs or token sales. Additionally, Rollman Management has almost always made individual investments without collaborating with well-known venture capital firms.
Wide Range of Business Involvement
According to its official website, Rollman Management Digital is a global investment network and consulting firm that provides services in mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, real estate, and digital assets for family offices, high-net-worth individuals, and entrepreneurs. It describes its business as very broad, offering strategic planning consulting, investment and trading, marketing, tailored banking consulting solutions, and institutional-level Web3 services.
Among these, institutional-level Web3 services cover almost everything------ including over-the-counter trading (OTC), banking, hedge funds, venture capital, marketing, cryptocurrency/AI mining, financing, issuance platforms, market makers, liquidity providers, decentralized exchanges (DEX), and centralized exchanges (CEX). Rollman Management also provides marketing strategies for projects to help enhance their visibility and promote customer interaction.
Portfolio and Style Analysis
According to data from RootData and Cryptorank, Rollman Management currently has a portfolio of 11 projects, as shown in the figure below:
"Investment commitment" is a term that requires caution. Literally, it refers to the project party's promise to invest a specific amount in the project. However, there is significant room for manipulation behind it.
Previously, ChainCatcher had uncovered a venture capital firm, GEM Digital, with a similar investment style to Rollman Management. A project leader once stated that GEM Digital had contacted the project via email, promising to invest $50 million, but when signing the investment contract, the project party found that GEM stated in the contract that it would not directly transfer funds but would fill the investment amount with profits obtained from selling the tokens.
Related reading: The Most "Lavish" Crypto VC Firm GEM Digital: A Covert and Bizarre Capital Game
Rollman Management's "investment commitment" may differ from GEM Digital, but its investment style is generally similar:
1. High-frequency, large "investment commitments": Rollman Management's investments are relatively dispersed, involving social, RWA, AI, infrastructure, and DeFi sectors, with a median investment amount of $20 million. Among these, nearly half of the invested projects, such as VitalVeda, Tea-Fi, and Candao, are investment commitments rather than normal investments.
2. Choosing low-profile projects: Among the 11 projects invested by Rollman, only the Elastos and Yilaiyun projects were established relatively early and have some recognition and dynamics in Chinese-speaking regions due to their Chinese origins; the other projects have had almost no news updates, and the released projects have hardly been listed on mainstream exchanges.
3. Using media to create momentum: Investment news related to Rollman Management is mostly published on mainstream platforms like Cointelegraph and CoinDesk. The vast majority is published on Cointelegraph (with "sponsored" noted in the press releases), and they almost follow a template for financing news, with a highly similar article structure, clearly originating from Rollman. (You can click on the project names to experience it: 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 the project has not issued tokens, there are plans for IDOs or other token sales.
4. The tokens of invested projects exhibit a "pump and dump" pattern: The token prices of Rollman's invested projects have shown a trend of rapidly rising after the news release, followed by a decline. For example, on November 21, 2024, when Rollman announced its investment in AstraAI, the token price surged from $7.7 to a peak of $25, and currently, its token price is $4.
On January 30 of this year, Rollman announced its investment in Elastos, and the Elastos token also experienced a rapid rise, increasing from $13 to $21.
Hanging VC's Name, Selling Marketing's Game
Overall, Rollman resembles a conservative version of GEM Digital, with most of its partnered projects being unlaunched. Therefore, compared to GEM Digital's model of driving prices up through positive news, Rollman is essentially promoting token sales for project parties through its investment actions.
"Pump and Dump" was particularly prevalent 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 later run away or collapse. The practices of Rollman and institutions like GEM Digital can be seen as an "upgraded version" of this strategy, cloaked in legitimacy through "investment commitments," utilizing media and low-profile projects for systematic operations.
Currently, the crypto market is sluggish, and in the cold environment of the primary market, project survival has become more challenging, especially for projects without significant backgrounds or fame. Therefore, where there is demand, there is a market, and coupled with the still-imperfect regulations, especially regarding the definitions and constraints of ambiguous behaviors like "investment commitments," this provides operational space for institutions like Rollman.
ChainCatcher hereby reminds industry participants (including investors, project parties, media, and retail investors) to remain vigilant about such investments to avoid becoming victims of capital games.
