This zip file contains the four CSV files exported from Crunchbase in October 2013, and contains roughly 18,000 companies and 52,000+ investment events.

At the time of the export, Crunchbase provided its dataset under the Creative Commons Attribution License:

We provide CrunchBase’s content under the Creative Commons Attribution License [CC-BY]. Our content includes structured data, overviews and media files associated with companies and people. Our schema, and documentation are also offered under the Creative Commons license.

We ask that API users link back to CrunchBase from any pages that use CrunchBase data. We want to make sure that everyone is able to find the source of the content to keep the service up-to-date and accurate.

After a licensing dispute in December 2013, Crunchbase changed the license to a non-commercial Creative Commons 4.0:

The CrunchBase dataset is now offered under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 license [CC-BY-NC]. As with our previous terms, non-commercial use of the CrunchBase dataset simply requires attribution. We also encourage commercial use of the CrunchBase dataset, in whole or in part. Commercial uses do require a separate license to safeguard the community’s investment in the CrunchBase, as well as protect the dataset’s integrity. Members of the CrunchBase Venture Program do not require a new license.

These files are provided as is without warranty or guarantee of any kind. If you have any questions about the data, it's unlikely I'll have better answers than what the Crunchbase staff can provide.

Dan Nguyen - @dancow