Crowd-funding laws will be extended: govt

The federal government insists crowd-funding laws will be extended to private companies in the near future.

Legislation allowing unlisted public companies with less than $25 million in assets and turnovers to raise up to $5 million in funds a year cleared the Senate on Monday.

Labor, Greens and crossbenchers joined forces to make changes extending the cooling-off period for investors from two days to five days.

The opposition also tried, but failed, to amend the legislation to allow privately-held companies to access crowd-funding.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said the government was sympathetic to Labor's argument, insisting work was already underway to extend the laws to proprietary companies.

The government had asked Treasury to look at the framework for proprietary companies as a key priority, and expected to consult on draft legislation in coming months, he said.

But the overwhelming majority of stakeholders supported proceeding with the current legislation to allow public companies to begin crowd-funding as soon as possible, he said.

"The issue is that extending crowd-funding to proprietary companies is not simple and requires significant changes to the law," Senator Cormann told parliament.

"It would represent a fundamental change to the traditional concept of a proprietary company."

Opposition digital economy spokesman Ed Husic said the new laws would "end up stuffed", given the government had already promised to change them within the year.

"Any future changes will make today's new dodo of a system extinct within the year, as smaller business opt for a better alternative."