We were pre-interviewed on Thursday and so far have not heard anything. We submitted our app an hour or two before the deadline, if you give any credence to the rumor that invites are being sent according to the date of app submission.
No pre-interview for me so I guess I can start working on application number 4 ;)
I wouldn't necessarily say that! I think pre-interviews are simply an indication that a partner wanted more information about the startup. That might be because the information was omitted or because it wasn't within the scope of the application. I suppose the only certain conclusion you can draw is that prior to the pre-interview you hadn't yet been rejected. But seeing as each application is read by at least one other reviewer, and the 450 highest weighted applications are sent invitations, I don't believe that a single pre-interview has an extremely positive or negative bearing on your chances of being invited to final interviews.
What is a pre-interview?
We were sent an email and asked to pick a set of times. It was a ten minute conversation with a partner. I imagine each partner has the ability to set up a certain number of pre-interviews at their discretion if they want to gather more information on a particular startup - it's neither a positive nor negative signal, but simply an indication that they wanted to find out more information that's not in your application.