Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is a good idea! We conducted an inadvertent A/B test :)
Is there any chance you can blind yourselves to any extent? Or does everyone involved already know too much about which companies were initially accepted?
I wouldn't worry too much about that angle, personally.
The human mind can follow a community of about 150. This is two orders of magnitude larger.
I think they will be lucky if they can even remember names of folks they are dealing with.