I agree with Dan & Bronx, I've great respect for Nick (never met him - my loss) and if you look back through his many posts he has been challenged many times, has sometimes made mistakes, but the thrust is always accurate, and the mistakes generally turn out to be nit-picking.
Knowing how any company works, the idea of spending their own cash when they get someone else to do it through "risk reduction" or whatever is a no-brainer, it might be possible to argue that it wasn't *directly* funded, but you can be sure that knowing that a bucket load of cash was coming your way might make you advance or initiate plans you may have considered. but couldn't justify. I've not been able to find any trace of EH101 getting the uprated engine prior to the US101 plan, and it doesn't appear related to the BERP 4 work.