There is an API to get a lot of data out of CrunchBase even now and people are doing interesting mashups of the data. I'm not sure business opportunity is the right word since Michael's vision for CB is/was an open, wiki-style research/analysis tool.
"We permit anyone to republish our content in accordance with this licensing policy.
"We provide CrunchBase’s content under the Creative Commons Attribution License [CC-BY]..."
from http://www.crunchbase.com/help/licensing-policy
So the information in Crunchbase could be copied elsewhere, so long as the new publisher gives credit (attribution) to the original sources.
Maybe this is a business opportunity --- something too small for AOL to care about but big enough for a smaller company.