E676 | Poone Mokari, ewake.ai & Pietro Bezza, Connect Ventures: Building the AI Teammate for Software Reliability

Welcome back to the EUVC Podcast where we dive deep into the craft of building and backing venture-scale companies in Europe.Modern software doesn’t fail quietly.It fails on Black Friday.It fails while the CFO is in a board meeting.It fails when your biggest customer is mid-way through a critical workflow.And when it does, there’s one brutal reality:The data is there but nobody has time to interpret it.Today we’re exploring one of the most under-discussed yet mission-critical parts of building modern software: reliability in production.Joining Andreas are:👩🏻‍💻 Poone Mokari: CEO & Co-Founder, ewakeParis-based startup building AI agents for software production reliability, fresh off a $2M pre-seed led by Connect Ventures.💥 Pietro Bezza — Managing Partner, Connect VenturesEurope’s most product-obsessed early-stage investors (Aikido, Typeform, TrueLayer), backing ewake as their next agentic AI investment in observability.We unpack why observability is overdue for a rewrite, how AI agents finally provide the “reasoning layer” that logs & metrics never could, and how ewake is building a global devtools company out of Paris.Here’s what’s covered:01:12 | What ewake does — AI agents for software production reliability that reason across logs, metrics & code to cut through observability overload02:32 | Why Connect backed them — trusted intros, a massive category (post-cloud, multi-$B), and founders with rare insider insight into reliability engineering05:18 | The shift AI enables — from reactive data dashboards to an intelligence layer that correlates structured + unstructured data and finds root causes07:48 | The hidden layers of tech — why deep, unglamorous infrastructure (observability, reliability, SRE workflows) is a massive opportunity for new entrants08:52 | The wedge — LLMs as reasoning engines over infrastructure data: not more dashboards, but an operator that collaborates with engineers in critical moments11:48 | Production ≠ code on your laptop — the real-world complexity: business context, urgency, multi-team coordination, and why semantic reasoning matters14:38 | “Can we trust AI?” — why agentic workflows differ from ChatGPT, how ewake constrains context, guards against hallucinations & enforces “don’t know” responses16:38 | Founder–market fit — living the pain at Criteo, deep SRE experience, and product instincts that made ewake’s pitch compelling pre-product17:16 | Connect’s thesis — product-first founders, problem insight over pedigree, and why product is the highest leverage driver of venture-scale outcomes22:31 | Product-led ≠ PLG — clarifying the difference between product-first strategy and the specific go-to-market motion of product-led growth26:02 | How Awake raised $2M pre-product — insight clarity, storytelling from lived experience, fast-moving investors, and a clear “teammate, not dashboard” vision30:40 | What Connect looks for — opinionated founders with singular insight, UX instincts, and a tinkerer’s mindset for frontier-tech categories38:20 | Why build in Paris — deep AI talent pools, strong engineering culture, global problem space, and a shift toward France as a magnet for AI founders42:15 | Geography myths — why great companies emerge anywhere, Europe’s deep industry advantage, and dual-hub (EU + US GTM) playbooks47:23 | Where ewake is now — out of stealth, hiring, in design partnerships, building alongside early users, and stress-testing agents in real incidents51:52 | Final reflections — design-led vs. tinker-led founders, why ewake fits the frontier-tech profile, and what the next wave of AI infra looks like