Many of you might remember the popular, Nova Launcher app. It has been one of the most popular alternatives for stock Android launchers, with tons of customizations. From shape of the icons, to grid sizes and custom icons that many default smartphone launchers didn’t offer a few years ago. In 2022, the launcher was sold to Branch Metrics, a mobile analytics and deep-linking company. Only Nova Launcher’s founder, Kevin Barry remained until September 2025. After months of unanswered questions, we finally have an answer.

Nova Launcher is back from the dead, but with a twist

Nova Launcher officially announced today that Instabridge, a Swedish company, acquired the app. They declared that they will keep the app up-to-date and maintained.

“Nova is not shutting down. Our immediate focus is simple: keep Nova stable, compatible with modern Android, and actively maintained.” 

Although, some users on Reddit spotted ads and sponsored tiles inside the app drawer launcher. Prime members didn’t encounter any ads yet. However, since the original developer is no longer involved in the Nova Launcher development, fans worry about the future of Nova Launcher.

I have ads on my app drawer?
byu/Jabpi inNovaLauncher

If you are not a fan of this new direction, you might want to look into other third-party alternatives. Or, you could try using default launcher from your phone manufacturer. Meanwhile, if you are a Galaxy user, you can further customize your One UI launcher with Good Lock‘s suite of apps, one of them being Home Up. You can check what Home Up module can do in One UI 8.5 here.