their application seems pretty simple to fill out (in some cases requiring less than 100 words of description) unlike YC app so I assume they want to funnel interest from as many founders as possible before deciding which apps to pick to fund.
I suspect someone could out-compete YC just by obtaining the YC application data and funding on that basis alone, eschewing the interview process entirely as it very possibly introduces more noise than signal. It'd take some guts though, kinda like starting YC in the first place took guts.