Several companies, appliance maker Whirlpool and energy retailer Direct Energy among them, have joined forces to showcase what the energy efficient home of the future will look like — using enough electronics to make it truly worthy of the Consumer Electronics show where it is debuting in Las Vegas.

The demonstration system in question, called the Home Energy Manager (HEM), will include appliances that tap into a unified network to communicate how much energy they are using, when, why and how much it is costing. This type of data transmission is what will eventually make it possible for your clothing dryer to know to turn on after your refrigerator has stopped making ice. The goal is to use the lowest amount of energy possible between them, saving their owners a substantial amount off their monthly electric bills.

The home will also exhibit a two-way thermostat made by Lennox International, which allows consumers to adjust the temperature, while also automatically regulating it to maintain their comfort while also saving energy. These thermostats are also the variety that will eventually be controlled by consumers remotely via their smartphones, browsers, television screens, etc.

The cherry on the top is the touch-screen home energy dashboard provided by home monitoring company OpenPeak — a partner of major smart meter maker Itron. With a pretty, iPhone-like interface (see above), the dashboard allows residents to program their appliances to run at certain times, to change home temperatures, and to view all the requisite data on their energy consumption.

This is a big opportunity to break out for OpenPeak, which has been stuck in the middle of an ever-growing pack of home energy management companies that includes Tendril, Control4, EnergyHub, People Power, OPOWER, and more. In addition to displaying energy use in real-time, the company’s dashboard will also act as the epicenter for home wireless networks.

The combination of Whirlpool appliances, Lennox thermostats and OpenPeak dashboards is a cocktail that Direct Energy plans to try for a year in 40 homes in Houston — where it is already actively installing residential smart meters. Tapping Best Buy’s Geek Squad for all the networking installation, the utility wants to collect enough data from the pilot project to make very specific recommendations for consumers to slash their day-to-day energy use.

Most of the changes Direct Energy hopes to encourage wouldn’t impact consumers’ regular lives at all. In the past, the most successful energy management technology has not required any attention at all — it’s simply saved while maintaining a consistent level of comfort. This is the idea behind companies like EcoFactor, maker of a two-way thermostat system that keeps homes at an ideal temperature while also conserving energy and money — users don’t have to change their routines or behavior.

The CES demo system is one of the most elaborate home energy ecosystems seen to date. It could provide a valuable example and much-needed nudge to companies like Tendril, General Electric and other major utilities to start offering the same.

Iovation, a Portland, Oregon company that aims to track and prevent online fraudsters, has closed off its first round of funding at $15 million.

The basic idea behind Iovation’s product is keeping track of millions of computers to pinpoint the few that are used for fraudulent activities, a scheme the company calls “device reputation fraud management.” Iovation sells its software to online retailers, banks, social networking sites and others.

Of the funding, $10 million was closed last November, provided by Intel Capital. The additional $5 million came from SAP Ventures and European Founders Fund.

See our story about this stealthy Palo Alto, Calif., startup in today’s daily briefing at VentureBeat LifeScience.

See our story on this Santa Clara, Calif., medical-device maker in today’s daily briefing at VentureBeat LifeScience.

Started in 2004 as a collaborative project between agricultural giant Cargill and Materia, a catalyst maker based on IP from the California Institute of Technology, Elevance Renewable Sciences has spun off to commercialize a promising technology that can transmute natural oils into other chemicals.

Elevance is capable of using a variety of feedstocks like soy and corn oil to form a variety of other chemicals, much as crude oil has been used for decades. The company says its products, which will include waxes, antimicrobials, derivative oils and lubricants, among others, are safer than crude oil-based alternatives.

The $40 million funding was led by TPG Growth and TPG Biotechnology Partners. Elevance is based in Lisle, Illinois.

Citing the need for consumer market investments in China, Granite Global Ventures has raised another $200 million for its third fund, which was originally closed off at $400 million in 2006.

Granite has traditionally invested in technology and emerging sectors, but plans on expanding to some sectors in China that are already well established in the United States. They won’t be alone; as we reported late last year, Kleiner Perkins has invested in a Chinese shirt factory and Sequoia Capital backed a farm in the country.

The firm also added brought on four partners from SIG Capital, which in turn is the managing firm behind Venture Star Shanghai, an affiliate of Granite Global. The four are Zhuo Fumin and Jessie Jin, who are will be managing partners at Granite, and Michael Kuan and Steve Chu, who will be venture partners.

Granite Global has about $1 billion under management, including investments from its first two funds.

The US has already seen its explosion of mom-related sites: Mommy bloggers, social networks, shopping sites and more have proved to be one of the most successful Web 2.0 niches. Now a hefty funding for the Chinese site Yaolan.com from Foundation Capital and NSA Investments, reported by peHUB, makes it look as if China is the next frontier.

Yaolan is a community site, where moms can post pictures of themselves and their babies, take part in polls, read articles and blog posts and find products for their children. The site appears to already have a fairly significant amount of traffic.

Also joining the $17.1 million funding were previous backers Sutter Hill Ventures and Chengwei Ventures. The company has raised a total of $26.1 million to date.

One of several startups that asks users to do poll-style votes in order to predict the future, Predictify is most notable for its partnership with the New York Times blog Freakonomics.

These sites are popping up everywhere. Most recently, we covered Xpree, which lets companies tap into the collective wisdom of their employees, and the Industry Standard, a former magazine that now asks readers to predict events like whether Yahoo will accept Microsoft’s acquisition offer.

Predictify doesn’t focus on any particular category, instead allowing any sort of question to be asked. It rewards accurate predictors with cash.

The $4.3 million funding was provided by Sierra Ventures and Sherpalo Ventures, according to Mashable, which first reported the investment. It was the Redwood City, Calif. company’s first full round.

Water cleaning, purification and desalination is becoming ever more important in the cleantech world. AqWise, like others, is touting a cheaper solution for treating water.

The Israel-based company has a biological film that it uses to filter waste water. Its Attached Growth Airlift Reactor systems can be deployed in existing treatment plants, which should help the company grow more rapidly.

The $3.6 million funding was provided by AHMSA Steel Israel Ltd, Elron Electronic Industries and Israel Cleantech Ventures.

Viva Vision, a Los Angeles, Calif. company that makes content and applications for mobile media, says it saw strong growth last year.

The firm reports revenue growth of 350 percent and subscriber growth of 130 percent, and a positive income based on EBITDA. It also grew from 15 to 23 carriers.

Medical Capital Corporation provided the $2 million funding for Viva Vision.