The figures just get bigger and bigger. Call it the litigation funding industry's law of large numbers.

Longford Capital Management LP announced Monday the latest headline figure, $500 million, which is how much the Chicago-based firm raised from investors for a second fund that will dwarf the initial $56.5 million fund that it raised three years ago.

Longford said it had already invested $100 million of the new fund, which it has three years to spend backing plaintiffs in antitrust litigation, commercial cases and intellectual property disputes. In a sign of the investor communities' growing acceptance of litigation funding, Longford's second fund pulled from 195 investors, compared with 34 for its first fund, according to corporate disclosure documents.