The ability to improve mechanical properties through trace alloying additions that enhance the precipitation-hardening response has been a cornerstone of aluminium research and alloy development. It is now known that many of these alloying additions are beneficial (or deleterious) because of their influence on the competitive precipitation kinetics, in many cases arising from the formation of chemical and structural heterogeneities in the matrix. In order to better our understanding of this phenomenon, the earliest stages of microstructural evolution of indium precipitates and theta' plates in an Al-Cu-In ternary alloy have been investigated. Quantitative microstructural characterization reveals that there is a correlation between the size of the pre-existing indium particle and the resulting heterogeneous precipitation kinetics, with larger indium particles favouring theta' precipitation.