Michele Brouse’s decision to start her own business, BrandUp Solutions, was strongly influenced by the fact she had recently moved to Wilmington.

“We came to Wilmington three years ago when my husband was promoted here with PNC Bank,” she said. “I had a full-time job but wanted flexibility to be able to do things with our kids. I was working really hard and thought, ‘Imagine what I could do with my own company.’”

Brouse did her research. Friends and family sent her articles about Wilmington’s desirability as a startup-friendly locale.

“I seized the moment because we were here,” she said. “I would not have done this anywhere else.”

North Carolina ranks third among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the increasing number of woman-owned businesses, according to the fifth annual State of Women-Owned Business Report, commissioned by American Express OPEN. This year’s report, released in mid-May uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Business Owners to track trends from 1997 to 2015.

During that period, the nation saw a nearly 74 percent increase in the number of companies owned by women; North Carolina experienced a nearly 98 percent increase.

Asked why so many women were starting their own businesses in recent years, American Express OPEN’s research adviser Julie Weeks had several theories.

“It follows a general trend of increasing levels of education and of managerial experience [among women],” she said. “Women are better equipped now. They have better connections. There is more talk about the value of controlling their own destiny.”

In other words, Weeks said, women are generally not starting businesses as a last resort when they can’t find a job.

The fact is, though, that while many North Carolina women are starting businesses, those businesses aren’t growing as rapidly as their counterparts elsewhere. Weeks pointed out that North Carolina dropped to 20th in the country when it came to woman-owned businesses’ growth in employees and ranked even lower – 45th – in terms of revenue growth.

Julie Orr thinks it may be difficult to make an accurate assessment of employee growth. For some time after she founded Modoc Research in Wilmington in 2005 as a sole proprietorship, staffing levels dipped and rose depending on how many clinical trials the company was involved with.

Modoc Research now has five permanent administrative employees in Wilmington and more than 20 contract workers across the country. While Orr can legally count those contract workers as employees in her bids for clinical trials work, she doubts whether the census picks them up.

Modoc’s revenues, similarly, were “like a roller coaster” for several years, Orr said. But over time, they have grown. Her first year, revenues were just under $1 million. She projects revenues of $5 million for 2015.