Chinese investors back British surgical firm

A British company, that has developed a robot that performs surgery, has raised $100 million in funding from five investors including the Zhejiang SilkRoad Fund in China.

Cambridge-based CMR Surgical has created the world's smallest surgical robot, called Versius, that performs laparoscopy, or "keyhole" surgery, with mechanical arms that mimic the movements of the human hand.

Zhejiang SilkRoad Fund, a fund set up by the Zhejiang provincial government in 2016, is investing in CMR for the first time, while the four other investors - Escala Capital Investments, LGT, Cambridge Innovation Capital and Watrium - had previously contributed to an earlier funding round that garnered $46 million.